I'll Most Likely Kill You in the Morning
by inkfingers mcgee
Summary: Foggy and Matt didn't go to school together. They meet for the first time while working opposite sides of a case, and Matt doesn't leave much of an impression; he seems like a nice guy, but no one Foggy will worry about a week from now. He has more important things on his mind, like the masked vigilante who keeps threatening him for information in dark alleys. Matt/Foggy, slow burn
1. Chapter 1

" _Three years he said that. 'Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.' It was a fine time for me. I was learning to fence, fight, anything anyone would teach me. And Roberts and I eventually became friends. And then it happened_."

-The Princess Bride

* * *

"Murdock and Page, right? Marci was supposed to tell me when you got here. I'm Foggy Nelson."

The first time Matt hears that voice, it's in the lobby of Landman & Zack where the high ceilings make for chaotic airflow and the glass sends even the slightest sounds ricocheting like a game of sonic pinball. When Mr. Nelson puts his hand out for the shaking, Matt doesn't use awkward pause to get an idea for the stranger's physical build like he should. Instead, he's caught trying to figure out if he could discern the number of attackers in an ambush at this location, or if he'd have to count them as he dropped them, one-by-one, until there was no one left standing.

Nelson breaths, "Shit," too low to be more than an exhalation to the average person, and then says at regular volume, "I'm, uh- offering my hand. Do you shake hands?"

It's not the dumbest question he's ever been asked, but Matt isn't feeling generous enough to curb his reflexive grimace.

"I've been known to," he responds, and lets his cane hang from his wrist by the strap as he lifts his hand into the general vicinity of Mr. Nelson's. They shake. The motion jars Nelson's cuff, and from that, Matt gets a whiff of sweat and Tide detergent and heavy paper and laptop keys that haven't been cleaned in a while and a subtle edge of mold, probably something that grows in Nelson's closet. There's cologne, too, still clinging from a few days ago. It's high-end but not as expensive as the perfume wrapped in a cloud around Ms. Stahl, who stands forgotten and emitting adrenaline by the secretary's desk. She's angry, embarrassed. Caught out trying to go around Mr. Nelson's back, it appears.

"I'm Tully's lawyer," Nelson says as he releases Matt's hand to shake Karen's. "Marci, here, is on the team, too, but I think I'm the one you want to be talking to." His shoes— new, judging by the slight squeak in the sole, uncomfortable, by their reluctance to crease when bent— shift against the polished floor as he hefts the warmth of his weight to his left side. It's a relaxed posture, but not overly so. Professionalism without cockiness. Maybe they can do business.

Karen begins, "We're here on behalf of Mrs. Cardenas—"

"Yes! Yeah, I remember from our phone conversation." The air around Mr. Nelson's head shifts as his hair cuts through it, a few strands dislodged with nodding. "If you don't mind, could you guys come with me? I didn't work my ass off for a corner office to talk business in the lobby."

It's the kind of comment that makes Matt hate other lawyers, but Mr. Nelson delivers it with an odd edge of self-deprecation. There must be something in his expression, too, because Karen takes the distinctive breath that usually precedes laughing.

"Of course," Matt says. "Lead the way, Mr. Nelson."

Karen fixes her hand over Matt's in the crook of her arm and leads him after Nelson's ever-so-slightly squeaky footsteps. They pass a shuddering structure that cuts the airflow to ribbons— staircase— and stop near slide of elevator doors. There's a click as Nelson presses a button, then he undoes the front of his suit and pockets his hands, a gesture that strikes Matt for its casualty. Matt can hear the smooth sound of the pockets' lining against Nelson's hands, but he can't differentiate his heartbeat from the several dozen around them, not enough to get a read on the nature of Nelson's behavior. He breathes normally but not in their direction, so he's looking away, almost like he's upset. Interesting.

Finally, with a ding, the elevator in front of them opens. The three of them board. Nelson presses a button as soon as they enter, closing the doors before anyone else can get on.

In the close quarters of the elevator, Matt's world is technicolor.

He can sense the sharp slopes of Karen's figure next to him just by the sounds of her dress shifting, a supplement to her heat signature that's almost as good as touching her. She blinks, and he feels the flick of each lash and envisions the planes of her cheeks clearly as the dislodged air passes over them.

Nelson is clear for the first time, more a person now than a loose collection of sensations: about Matt's height, though heavier and less solid. Reflexively Matt considers the best way to take him out (grab the arm to take him off his footing, put a knee in the vulnerable flab of his stomach, plant the other hand on his forehead and throw him straight down) as he takes in the distribution of heat, settled mostly around Mr. Nelson's torso. He ate a plain bagel this morning, but hasn't had anything since except coffee— a lot of it, too, judging by the racket of his stomach. His heartbeat is a little quick but his adrenaline's low and there's heat gathered around the nondescript area of his face; he's not nervous, but guilty, maybe. Or it could be attraction, given the way he's shifted toward Karen, shoulders higher than they should hang naturally, abdominals shivering ever so slightly from pulling in his gut (an unconscious action, maybe a habit). He's not looking at Karen, though. He's looking at Matt. The breaths from his nose pass unobstructed over his mouth, so that means he's holding it tight, biting at the inside, maybe, given the little pinch inside his lower lip where the blood stops. He wants to say something that he's not supposed to say.

Matt absorbs all of this in about a second, and says immediately, "Is something bothering you, Mr. Nelson?"

Nelson sighs, "Yeah," and presses another button on the elevator panel. The world lurches to a stop around them with a twang of cables from above and a grind of gears from below.

Next to Matt, Karen tenses. Her adrenaline spikes. "He stopped the elevator," she says quietly. Matt nods. It's a testament to how shaken up she's been that she thinks they're in for any danger from Nelson. He may be a stranger, but even if Matt were as mild-mannered as he acts, he and Karen could take Nelson easily.

"Sorry about this," says Nelson, and his steady heartbeat attests to that. "This isn't professional, and I really don't mean to go all Bond villain on you—"

"If you're trying to intimidate us…" Karen says, with the sort of tone that doesn't indicate a planned end for that thought. Her fingers are tight over Matt's.

Nelson's hands spread outward at waist-level, a slow, placating motion with his palms diagonal to the floor. "No, no. Nothing like that. Listen. Ms. Page, Mr. Murdock." He makes a formal motion at each of them respectively, then breathes a breath heavy with resignation. "When you called, I told you I'd review my firm's dealings with our client, and I did that. If I'm being totally honest, after everything you told me, I was…" he pauses, turns away briefly with a brush of hair. "I was kind of hoping to find something this asshole could get pinned with. I knew Tully was shady, but—" a scoff. "At the end of the day, there's nothing I can tell you. I reviewed all of our dealings with him, and the contracts for the renters and the repairmen. I revisited the precedent for cases like this. The fact of the matter is, it's all legal. Fishy as hell, but above-board, and if you try to come at us on this, we'll crush you."

Faintly Matt senses Nelson's face crease into a grimace. Next to him, Karen is still; he gives her arm a light squeeze as he considers all of this.

"You're going through a lot of effort to rephrase what your associate just told us, Mr. Nelson," he says, finally, taking care to keep his voice level. He appreciates the spirit of Nelson's little speech, but ultimately, he's just telling them to back off.

With a small groan, Nelson pockets his hands again. He's got six pennies in there, and no lint. "Yeah, I guess I am."

Karen's posture loosens next to him. She's decided that she likes this Nelson character; there's a softness to her tone when she says, "So why are we having this conversation?"

"Because I'm rooting for you guys," Nelson says. "Alright? You're doing what I always wanted to do in college, you know: standing up for the little guy, making a difference. But the real world isn't like that, so here I am, telling you that the law's the law and there isn't a loophole big enough to keep this asshole from kicking nice little old ladies out of their houses." He runs a hand over his face; his palms are moist. "But I'm rooting for you, okay?"

Matt could be disbarred for this, but he thinks his grasp on Nelson's character is solid enough that the gamble isn't too risky. "So you'll let us know, if one of those loopholes widens."

Nelson tenses, but not so much that he hadn't expected a response like that. He was practically fishing for it. "I could lose my job."

"Ms. Cardenas could lose her livelihood," Karen says, strong but wavery with emotion. Matt feels a rush of endorphins that someone less aware of their body might call their heart swelling.

The same happens to Nelson, endorphins and a little flutter of the heart and a hot spike behind his face. "Yeah," he says, a sharp breath. "You're right. I'll keep you guys in mind. If I find anything… this asshole goes to court."

A smile cuts across Matt's mouth without him entirely meaning it to. "Ms. Cardenas will be grateful." He shifts his cane and offers a hand to shake, continuing to smile at the breath of self-conscious laughter that punches out of Nelson's mouth as their hands meet. He hangs on for maybe a second too long, noting the alignment of Nelson's bones (nearly perfect: never been in a fight) before they finally let go.

Nelson's heart still flutters a bit, but he makes no outward indication of this, just shakes Karen's hand, then reaches to press a button. Karen holds Matt's hand tightly when the elevator jerks, though he'd already braced for the movement.

"Like I said," Nelson says at a social volume as the doors open back up on the first floor, "there's nothing we can do at the time. If you ever want to make a legitimate claim, you have my number."

The light, pricey scent of Stahl's perfume lingers a few yards away. Matt schools his expression for her benefit, regarding Nelson with casual disdain. "You'll be hearing from us, Mr. Nelson," he says.

"Yeah," Karen says, and it's too aggressive but Matt can't begrudge her enthusiasm. "Come on, Matt, let's go."

As Karen leads Matt away, heat flares in Nelson's left cheek, a muscle strained to keep him from smiling.

At that moment, Matt commits Foggy Nelson to memory: his frank language and his unassuming gestures and his will to do the right thing. He hopes they have a chance to do business again. There are far too few good people left in Hell's Kitchen.

Once they reach the sidewalk, Karen pulls Matt closer and breathes in the shape of smiling. "That went a lot better than I thought it would," she says.

Matt pats her hand. "Don't get your hopes up too much, Karen. We still haven't made any formal progress on the case." Karen makes a small, disappointed noise, and Matt turns to her with a tame smile. "But I think we have someone in our corner."

"God, that's so great after all of this," Karen sighs. "Was starting to feel like you were the only person in this whole city I could trust."

Matt doesn't know how that makes him feel, but it makes him feel too _much_.

"Listen, Karen." He drops his arm from hers, staying in stride without missing a step as he begins to tap his cane. "You go on. I'm gonna stop by the precinct, then I'll meet you at the office."

Karen seems hesitant to leave him by himself, but he reminds her that he's used to getting around on his own, so she agrees with an warm-faced nod. She leaves Matt on the sidewalk, and he waits for the cab she hails to turn the corner before he heads back the way they came. He stops at a bench about half a block down and sits.

A hiss leaves him without his permission. He has to steady his breathing to keep from wilting; fatigue threads through every limb, ready to pounce the moment he lets his guard down. The feeling is easy enough to ignore on his feet, secondary to more immediate functions like walking and staying upright, but when he pauses, it threatens to overtake him. A place just below his lowest floating rib throbs with sudden sharpness— a Russian sucker-punched him there. He presses his hand to it and grimaces.

Then he draws a deep breath, centers himself, and envisions the pain leaving his body as he exhales. He has things to do.

Landman & Zack sounds like an anthill. Matt hated it the first time he went there, to interview for an internship he got but didn't accept, and he hates it now, even from hundreds of feet out. Beyond its air vents and featureless glass-scape, there are countless footsteps: a marathon of clacking heels and crinkling leather shoes, swishing slacks and skirts straining as hosed legs zip underneath them, blazers and jackets that flutter at the hems when the air hits them just right. It's no more movement than he's used to hearing outside— less, in fact— but it's different when it's boxed in. The noise unifies, not into a rhythm but into a wall of sound without depth or meaning. It's not too much to handle, but it's _annoying_.

He has to sort through it in layers. First, the ambiance of the building's shape: the walls and the floors and furniture and the noises those things make as they break the airflow or shift or settle. Then, the object noises: papers rustling, generators buzzing, toilets flushing, machines humming, copiers shuffling through reams of paper. Finally, he makes it to the human sounds: voices. Hundreds of them, and he's looking for one in particular.

"What the hell, Foggy?" Stahl is pissed— Matt wasn't listening for her, but she cuts right through with her familiar inflection and crisp tone. Someone— Nelson? —shushes her, and she drops her volume. "Are you trying to get fired? Tully's your client, you can't just go around knocking elbows with these justice crusader types, not when they're sniffing around, making accusations—"

"They're not wrong!" Straining, Matt thinks he can hear the backwards roll of Nelson's chair, and his hands slapping against his desk. "He's a slumlord, Marci!"

"Diversified businessman," Stahl corrects, knee-jerk, like they've had this exact conversation before.

"Does it really make you feel better to think that? Jesus." A _whumph_ and the creak of wheels signal that Nelson has fallen backwards into his chair. "I don't know. I don't know if I can keep him as a client."

"Foggy." Stahl's voice is hushed. Matt can't hear anything that indicates her movements, but he imagines her sitting down on Nelson's desk. "Look, I know you're nothing if not a bleeding heart, and that's cute and everything. It really is. But this is the real world, and at the end of the day, Tully hasn't done anything illegal. They don't have anything to bring against him in court."

A sigh reverberates oddly from Nelson, maybe against hands pushed to his face. "I know," he groans, and Matt imagines him leaning against the desk, imagines his crisp suit rumpled and his joints hung loose with exhaustion. He imagines this because he's felt it before: the helplessness that comes with being limited by legal boundaries. He wonders what it would be like to actually stay within those boundaries, to feel the inadequacy of the law indefinitely, without a black mask and a sharp right hook to break him out of it.

It would probably feel a lot like Nelson sounds, forlorn and sighing as he says, "I'm going home."

Matt feels bad for the guy.

Though he was hoping to overhear information on Tully, this sketch of Nelson's character isn't useless. He didn't have a lot of hope to move the tenancy case forward, but maybe with Nelson's help, justice is possible. It would be nice to win one in the courtroom, for a change.

Maybe he doesn't need the mask every time he wants to make a difference, he thinks, and chuckles at the idea even as he strains against his bruised body to stand. Maybe, against all odds, things are looking up in Hell's Kitchen.

The city explodes six hours later.

 **x+x**

Matt meant to give himself a day off.

He really did.

Contrary to what Claire believes, he has to catch his breath every once in a while. He doesn't want to send himself into shock or pass out mid-leap between buildings; those kinds of things are hardly conducive to doing his job.

So, stumbling out of the sewers with semi-automatics rattling behind him and a snatch of Russian lullaby caught in his head, he decides that tomorrow is as good a time as any. He'll power through these last few hours before dawn with meditation and stretching, then let himself sleep a whole solid six when he gets home from work.

He feels, like a needle swinging North, that Leeland Owlsley will be his last big step toward exposing Fisk. He needs to be ready. He owes that to Hell's Kitchen.

It's the longest day of his life, trying to keep his mind in the present at work. Every time he runs his fingers over a new line, the words are obliterated by the sense memory of Vladimir's heaving torso, the pulpy muscles underneath, and he has to start over. He loses count of the times Karen asks if he's okay.

"I'm fine," he tells her at least once an hour, until finally at seven she says,

"Go home, Matt."

He knows she'll be there until nine, but he also knows better than to argue with that tone. On his way out, he stops by her desk and lets his hand hover tentatively toward her arm before giving it a squeeze.

"Be good, Karen."

"Might wanna do that, yourself."

He smiles, and doesn't take it to heart.

As soon as he's through his front door, he leaves a trail of clothes to the bedroom and just barely gets his glasses off before easing between the sheets. His eyes flutter, blissfully, at the slide of silk against his skin. The tension spills out of him, and he goes star-fished against the mattress with a gentle gasp. It's a guilty feeling. He'll never get any rest if he thinks about that, though, so he closes his eyes against it and strives for an empty mind. No Fisk, no bombs, no Vladimir screaming in his fiery mind's eye. Just six hours, then his alarm will go off. He'll wake up and head straight to stake out Owlsley's place, question him first thing if he's able. He just has to do this, has to make himself sleep. A few more moments and he'll be out. It'll be okay.

He drifts off with his knuckles twitching against the imagined feeling of broken bone.

Two and a half hours later, he flinches awake to a distant shriek. He lies immobile, eyes blown wide against the unchanging dark, trying figure out if it was real.

" _Help!_ "

He's up and gathering his gear off the floor without a thought for his health.

 **x+x**

Someone screams.

Foggy's heart leaps into his throat and his briefcase hits the sidewalk. He stops to clutch at his chest, trying not to gasp like a complete baby. Since he heard about the bombings last night, he's been jumpy; he knew Hell's Kitchen was a mess after the Invasion, but masked men blowing up half the neighborhood? That's too much for his weak desk-jockey's heart, thanks.

"Help!"

Okay, shit, that's definitely someone calling for help. He turns toward the sound, one foot shifted out, unsure if he should—

" _Help!_ "

He breaks off at a run, briefcase forgotten. Despite the late hour there are quite a few people left on the streets, but he seems to be the only one who cares that someone is screaming. Head ratcheting about as he looks for the trouble, he barely sees the drunk in time— he sidesteps, but checks the drunk with one shoulder and stumbles into a wall.

"Watch it!" the drunk snaps, to which Foggy sputters,

"—you!"

 _You watch it_ , was the full implication, but he shakes his head and gets his footing back, trying to focus. He's not sure which way he's going anymore, or what he plans to do when he gets there, but—

" _He-elp!_ "

This time other people turn to look, but Foggy is already sprinting into the alley the cry seemed to come from. The few people who looked up turn away, diffusion of responsibility if he's ever seen it.

"Oh, so it's- it's my problem now?" Foggy huffs as he runs. "I'm probably- the least qualified person for this situation-" He fumbles for his phone, ready to dial 911 if it comes to that. He cuts behind buildings, turning back to scan the corners as he runs, but doesn't see anything suspicious. The alley spits him out on the other side of the block, facing the charred-out remains of a strip mall never repaired after the Invasion.

A clatter arises from behind the debris. Foggy draws a breath, trying not to think about how winded he is, and rounds the buildings.

"Hey," he calls out, "are you oka—?"

Foggy stops.

"Shit," he says.

It's not okay.

"That's enough," snarls the thug with the hostage under his arm (fuck) as he shifts his gun (shit) to point it at Foggy ( _fucking shit_ ). "Another sound, I shoot you _and_ this fat man."

The hostage, who Foggy recognizes with a gasp as one of the IT guys from L & Z, clutches at the thug's arm around his throat and struggles to put his feet flat on the ground. "You won't— if you haven't shot me yet, you're not gonna—"

The thug spits out a nasty laugh. Brown blood cakes half his face; his eyes are snapped wide like something in a cage. "Maybe so," he says, and is that a Russian accent? That's a Russian accent, Foggy thinks. Not that those kinds of things matter when there's a gun on him.

"I don't need you with leg," the Russian growls, "and I don't need fat man at all."

"No, hey, maybe you do need me!" Foggy tosses his hands up, phone clutched in one so hard he thinks he might break it. "You're in charge here, man. You're the boss. You have a plan, right? You've got that guy, and he looks kind of like a hostage, so— You want something, guys with guns and hostages usually want something. So just- just let me call whoever it is you want something from, and I'll let them know about it, okay? You get what you want, nobody has to get shot. You shoot somebody, it's over for you, man. Let me help you. Let me help you."

The Russian barks a laugh, then kneecaps the hostage.

"Jesus!" Foggy yelps, but he's drowned out by the screaming.

The hostage dangles, shrieking, good leg kicking. God, that's a lot of blood.

"Okay, okay, I get it, I get it!" Foggy tries not to stagger back. He'll be shot if he looks like he's running. "You know what you need, you don't need me to tell you—"

" _Zatknis_ ," the Russian snarls, and aims at Foggy.

"Please—!"

The gunshot cracks off the buildings at the same moment the masked man lands feet-first on the Russian's shoulders.

Foggy stumbles backwards, convinced for a moment that the startled seize of his gut is a bullet wound. The masked man grabs the fallen hostage by the scruff of the shirt and slings him in Foggy's direction— "Help him!" - then rides the momentum into a flip that puts his heel square in the Russian's back.

Numb, Foggy falls to his knees next to the hostage. His hands hover, shaking, over the mess of the knee, and he darts a helpless look into the kid's wideblown eyes. It's probably bad that he isn't yelling anymore.

"Buddy, hey, everything's gonna be fine— it's Evan, right? Evan from IT?"

Evan nods, excessively, eyes skipping about as if knocked loose. "S'my fuckin' knee," he wheezes.

"Man, I, uh—" Foggy blinks at all the blood, Jesus, is it supposed to bleed like that? "—I don't know if I have the kind of first-aid for this—"

"Call an ambulance!" the masked man yells, then barley ducks a fist to the face. The Russian fires at him, misses, and yelps when the masked man kicks the gun out of his hand.

Foggy watches, feeling at once weightless and like lead, then dazedly picks his phone up off the ground. He doesn't remember dropping it. He manages to mis-dial twice before getting a connection.

" _Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?_ "

"Yeah, a man's been shot— shit! Shit, he's had enough, you're gonna kill him!"

The masked man's head jerks up. The rest of him is motionless, crouched taut over the Russian's limp body with one first around the collar and one arched mid-strike above his head. He hangs there, gargoyle-like, then shakes his head once and lets the Russian puddle to the ground.

" _Sir_ ," the operator is saying, " _are you there? Can you tell me where you are?_ "

"Uh, yeah," Foggy says, turning back to Evan from IT, who's definitely in shock now, "I'm here, uh-" He looks back up, but the man in the mask is gone.

The Russian lies still on the asphalt. Thin breaths whistle in and out of him.

Foggy swallows hard, draws a long, deep breath, and tries to form complete sentences as he talks to the 911 operator.

 **x+x**

The corner of the roof across the street doesn't offer much cover, but Matt tucks himself up there, anyway. He clenches his raw fists to keep his hands from shaking.

He doesn't think he would have killed that man if Nelson hadn't stopped him, but.

But.

He angles his head against the breeze and listens as the sirens pick up on the other side of the city. The sounds are too immediate, just the wrong side of intense. Stick would laugh if he could see Matt now, white-knuckling the edge of control just because he lost a few hours of beauty sleep. Or maybe he'd like it. _That's the spirit, Matty,_ he'd say as Matt threw the final punch, crushed the Russian's face in. Stick always thought Matt should be a killer.

Fuck Stick.

Matt presses his back against the inside lip of the roof to anchor himself and narrows down which sirens are headed this direction: one ambulance, two police cars. He grimaces. Two cars and no guarantee any of the cops will be clean. He'll need to follow them back to the hospital if he wants to keep them from executing this straggling Russian, and even if he can't do that, he needs to figure out what the Russian's business was with an IT guy from one of Hell's Kitchen's more underhand law firms. There's nothing special about him aside from his connection to Landman & Zack; he smells of Altoids and toner and his girlfriend's overbearing perfume, and has none of the hallmark rough knuckles or trained muscles of a fighter.

How someone like that gets himself dragged into an alley at gunpoint by one of the last surviving members of the Russian mob, Matt has no idea. Maybe he was just the unlucky hostage of a cornered criminal, but Matt can't make assumptions like that when his city is in turmoil underneath him.

While he waits for the sirens to arrive, he tunes in on Nelson across the street. Nelson's heartbeat has calmed, but only just, still a bass note that almost drowns out the small words of nonsense comfort he rattles off to the hostage. The hostage, himself, teeters on the edge of shock. Adrenaline and blood and urine come off him every time the breeze picks up, foul but not at all like the smell of death. He'll be fine.

"Yeah, man, you're a real trooper," Nelson says to the hostage, then, quieter, "you're sure there's nothing else I should do?"

911 must still be on the line. If he wanted to, Matt could hear the other side of the conversation, but it's not important.

"Sure, sure, I hear you," Nelson says into the phone. "I got it."

There's a quality of sincerity to Nelson's voice, even now in the midst of panic, that Matt is partial to. He hadn't expected to hear it again so soon, much less find it trying to diffuse a hostage situation. It was an admirable effort, if a stupid one. If Matt had been a second slower, that would have been the end of Foggy Nelson. He wonders what would have happened to Elena Cardenas's tenancy case, if he hadn't arrived in time.

He decides not to think about it.

The ambulance arrives first. Matt gets to his feet and crouches just out of sight, with his ear angled over the edge of the roof. Everything goes according to procedure as the paramedics leap to action, calling to each other and asking Nelson for specifics. Nelson thanks the 911 operator before he hangs up.

"Yeah, I think he's in shock? You guys would know better than me, you're the professionals, but I put my coat on him and I elevated his leg, so I thought maybe that might-?"

The first police car pulls up, then, and feeds two officers into the commotion. Matt doesn't recognize either of them. The chatter coming from their turned-down radio doesn't reveal anything amiss, but he narrows in on them anyway, cataloging details that he can use to identify them later if he needs to.

One of the officers goes immediately to Foggy, clipboard in hand, and peppers him with questions. The other jogs over to the Russian and rolls him over to face his reedy gasps into the concrete. Even at such a distance, Matt can hear the cuffs click on a size too tight. He smirks into his chest.

"You're saying the Devil beat this man?" the first officer asks Nelson.

"You guys really call him that?" Nelson scoffs despite still trembling. "Isn't that playing into his hands a little bit?"

"Mr. Nelson, please. You say you saw a vigilante in a mask incapacitate this man."

"Yeah, I did. He was fast, too. Real—" he gulps. "Really fast."

"Get a good look at him?"

"No— I mean, nothing everybody else hasn't seen in the news. White guy in a black outfit. Mask," Nelson mimes the mask with a sweep from his forehead to his nose. "How-? How do you think he sees through that thing?"

The officer grunts. "We'll ask him for you after we book him for battery, homicide, and terrorism."

Matt tries not to grind his teeth.

Down below, the paramedics are getting the IT guy's gurney into the ambulance.

"Evan, hey, you'll be fine," Nelson calls after him, waving. "You'll be okay!"

Matt cocks his head. That connection could be useful. He doubts Nelson is involved beyond happenstance— the man's too honest to be mixed up in all this— but he'll have to ask him what he knows, if he can catch him alone. Maybe the kind of guy who's willing to fudge the law for helpless old ladies will be the kind of guy to help the Devil, if Matt can convince him the cause is good.

Finally the second police car turns the corner. It skids into park, and the driver hops out to meet the other officers. When they put their heads together, Matt barely hears them exchange a quick,

" _You got the orders?"_

" _We'll handle it."_

before the officer is jogging toward the Russian. Frowning, Matt leans forward into the flex of his calves. He listens rigidly as the Russian is shoved, stumbling, into the back of the second police car.

That confirms it. Matt's little slip of control should have sent the Russian to the hospital.

These cops are gonna send him to the morgue.

The moment the police car shifts gear, Matt moves. He leaps from the rooftop to an adjacent fire escape and rushes up it, then off the top, onto another roof. He clears several blocks this way, around stairs and between stories and through fluttering laundry that he flips out of his way as he runs. The world breaks down into mere obstacles between him and the police car's groaning axle. He clears a gap between apartment roofs but takes the landing too hard, nearly losing the sound of the car as he stumbles to get back on his feet. Heedlessly he runs forward, head whipping back and forth—

Two shots, a strangled " _Please!_ " and another shot.

"Shit," Matt snarls. He vaults himself over the edge of the roof and scales down the side of the building, but it's too late.

"Shots fired! Shots fired!" the cop shouts into his com, standing, gun in hand, over the dead Russian. "Suspect went for officer's weapon, struggle ensued—"

The cop's jaw breaks under Matt's first two knuckles. To his side, the flick of a gun lifting— he slings his left foot into the air, the bullet sings between his spinning limbs, and his right heel sends the gun flying. He ducks the cop's fist and slams his knuckles into the nose, then the flat of his hand into the chest, sending the cop tumbling over the hood of the car. A kick lands on the back of Matt's knee. He yelps— would've broken his leg if he hadn't sensed it coming, but it still sends him stumbling. A fist swings at his kidney, but Matt catches it under his arm and reaches back for the cop's hair with his other hand, then throws the cop over his shoulder. The body strikes the concrete and Matt drives his boot into the head. Knockout. The other cop is up, but Matt spins and puts him down with a right hook that would've made his dad cry.

Sirens drift towards the alleyway.

"What do you know!?" Matt snarls, grabbing the lapels of the cop he left lucid. Or, damn it— not lucid enough. The cop's head lolls, eyelids pushing tears down his cheeks as he blinks unevenly. "Hey!" Matt shakes him. "Who told you to do this? Fisk? You know where he is?"

He knows that it's useless, but he doesn't relent to that until the sirens reach a screeching point and he feels headlights wash hot over his body. For a moment he stands, fingers trembling against the collar locked in his fists, teeth clenched. Then one of the cars grinds into park, and Matt throws the cop to the ground. He darts off between buildings, gasping against the strain of his overwrought body, but he doesn't slow. He can't.

A Russian gangster died on his watch tonight. Fine. Bastard probably had it coming. But Matt won't get an innocent lawyer's blood on his hands. Hell's Kitchen hardly has any to spare.

When he makes it back to the street where he left Nelson, the other police are still there— if they're even police at all— gathering evidence and asking questions.

"Look, I've told you everything," Nelson says to a cop, and then, " _Shit!_ "

Matt leaps from behind and puts the cop out with a kick to the head. He cuts past Nelson and immediately takes a fist to the jaw from the other cop, cheek sliced open on her wedding ring. He punches her in the arm, snatching the gun from her hand when her fingers go loose. He lobs the gun away. She grabs his shoulder with her other hand and slings her knee at his crotch, but he arches back, hooks a hand under her leg and throws her to the ground. She goes down hard but fighting. He comes down with a knee in her back, and gets her into a solid headlock— painful but not suffocating— just as he hears the scrape of metal on concrete behind him.

"Don't! Don't move!"

This is obviously the first time Nelson has held a gun. He stands there, legs bowed like one of the cowboys from the spaghetti westerns faded in Matt's memory, and aims for Matt's head even though his finger shakes on the trigger.

"You- you put her down and stand up with your hands up!"

Matt doesn't turn around.

"You're not going to shoot me."

Nelson's heartbeat goes haywire. "Listen, I'm not going to say that I don't screw around, because I screw around all the time! But I'm not screwing around on this! I'll shoot you, man!"

"You won't," Matt says evenly. "This officer is on the bankroll of a very bad man." The cop's heart jumps at that, and Matt smirks. "I'm not going to hurt her any more, as long as she tells me what I need to know. She's one of the bad guys. I'm not."

"Really!?" Nelson's voice goes pitchy. "Blow up half the goddamn city and you're not the bad guy? Jesus. No—!" he flinches as Matt begins to stand, following his head with the gun, but the muscles of his trigger finger are loose. "No, you stay down! Hey! I'm talking to you, man, I'm not kidding, I'll shoot you!"

Nelson wouldn't shoot the actual devil if he were standing there, and they both know it. For a moment, Matt is unnerved to feel such regard for someone so unlike him.

"You're not going to shoot me," Matt says again. Then there's a groan from behind Nelson, and Matt stiffens. Nelson may not shoot him, but that first cop will. Matt was distracted, but now he hears the cop's heartbeat leveling into wakefulness, his adrenaline coming back online. Fuck.

He should cut his losses and leave now. There's nothing he can do, but— damn it, he doesn't know what these cops will do to Nelson, especially now that Matt's gone and implicated them. Stupid, stupid. He won't have time to get any information out of the cop struggling in his headlock, so he tightens his elbow around her neck, idly crushing the consciousness out of her as he considers his options.

"Shit, shit!" Nelson pulls the gun back then repositions it, like that does something. "Stop! Don't do it, man, don't kill her—"

"I'm not killing her." Matt lets her slither out of his arms, gasping and fluttery eyed but still alive. Her heartbeat descends towards unconsciousness. "Listen to me. These offers are dirty. I don't even know if they're actually police, and I don't know what they'll do to you—"

"Can it!"

Shit, the cop is up. He aims his gun at Matt, hardly off the ground yet but intent on shooting to kill. He shouts, "Down on your knees, hands on your head!" Then, to Nelson, "You got him! Good job, kid, you got this asshole."

A muscle twitches in Nelson's face, either a smile or a grimace. Matt can't tell.

"Come on, down on your knees, hands on your head! Do it, do it!"

This time Matt does it. He pushes a low growl through his teeth as the officer rushes over to him, and lets himself be cuffed. On his knees, he has to breathe with deliberation; his pants aren't thick and he can feel every individual fleck of concrete like needles against his knees, skinned hallway to hell after the spill he took on the roof earlier. His cheek stings where the ring cut it.

"That's some real good work, friend," the cop says to Nelson, dusting off his hands as he steps away from Matt. "You're gonna be a hero. Whole city's gonna know your name. Here, hand me that gun before you hurt somebody."

Nelson doesn't so much hand the gun over as let it tumble away as his grip gives out. "I'm, uh, not really into heroes," he says faintly. "The well-known ones tend to destroy New York."

Matt can't help the breath of a laugh that bursts out of him.

"That's too bad," says the cop. Then he turns toward Nelson, and the muscles in his shoulder tighten, and that's the moment Matt realizes like ice in the pit of his stomach that Nelson is about to be shot.

Nelson realizes it a half a second later. He gasps, "What—" and Matt _moves_. He jumps backwards through his cuffs and springs off his feet into a kick, heel arcing over his head and into the cop's shoulder. When the cop staggers backwards, Matt throws his cuffed hands over the cop's neck and slings him to the ground with the chain, then starts hitting him, hands clasped together like a club, striking again and again without intention beyond keeping him down.

This time, Nelson doesn't stop him.

It's the snap of a bone fracturing completely— maxilla, probably— that jerks Matt out of it. He lurches to his feet. Staggers backwards. A breeze whips, cold, across his blood-wet fists. He gulps hard a few times, then crouches again to get the keys to the cuffs. Once he undoes his own wrists, he drags the cop over to a wall and cuffs him on a pipe, then goes and does the same to the one he left unconscious earlier. By the time he faces Nelson, his breathing is tempered again.

"You're a lawyer, right?"

Air whistles around in Nelson's gaping mouth. He closes his jaw, swallows, and says, "Huh?"

"You're a lawyer. You have connections. You can make sure the right attorneys prosecute these officers."

Nelson makes a nondescript motion, like a shrug he can't commit to, palms up at his sides. "I—? Yes? I mean, yeah, I can, uh. What. What? What the fuck?"

"These people," Matt points at each of them for emphasis, because Nelson is seeming a little vacant, "are dirty cops on the payroll of Wilson Fisk. That Russian that almost shot you, they- the other officers- executed him in an alleyway five blocks from here. Fisk has the whole city wrapped around his finger, and—"

"Whoa, man! Slow down, what—" Nelson raises his hands for Matt to stop, so he does, allowing a moment for things to process.

Nelson takes a few deep breaths, then says, "Okay, look. I'm? I'm freaking out right now. I'm enough of an adult to admit that, so— shit, okay, let me establish a few things. First of all, you're a terrorist! You're a terrorist, and I guess you kept me from getting shot twice tonight, which was very cool of you. I appreciate not being shot. It's great. But," he gestures expansively at Matt, "terrorist! You are a terrorist giving me a bunch of sourceless information about things I've never heard of! Obviously you're onto something about these cops, because I did absolutely almost get shot. Again. _Fuck_ ," he gasps, and wipes a hand over his mouth. He gasps unevenly, long and rattling against his hand, and Matt steps reflexively toward him.

"Nope!" Nelson throws a hand up, telling him to stop. "Nope, you stay the hell over there. Listen, you want me to get these cops nailed to the wall? I'll nail them like they nailed up Jesus, alright, because I don't appreciate being shot at by people who are supposed to protect and serve. But that's it! You and your conspiracy theory and your _bombs_ can just back away! In fact, I'm—" Nelson shudders in a breath, having not taken one the whole time he spoke. "I'm calling Brett."

Matt cocks his head. "Mahoney?"

Nelson pauses mid-dial. If Matt had to guess, he'd say Nelson is squinting. "You know Brett Mahoney?"

"I know he's a good cop."

"Good, then you know he'll arrest you if he gets the chance, and he won't shoot you like these guys. He'll let you live long enough to get dragged through a very public trial and pay for what you did to this city, right where the mass media can see you. You'd hate that, wouldn't you, guy wearing a mask."

Like it has every time he's had to suffer being accused of the bombing, Matt's stomach clenches and his fists lock up. "I didn't bomb anyone. It was Fisk—"

"Hey Brett!" Nelson says into the phone, voice cast high by artificial enthusiasm. "No. Wow, that's not nice. No, no, listen to me, Brett— I'm calling at this hour 'cause I'm standing here looking at the man in the mask. Yeah, Devil of Hell's Kitchen, whatever you wanna call him. He's right here."

That's Matt's cue to go. He hesitates for a moment, shifting his weight between his feet, but then Nelson starts to describe him — "Yeah, like five-foot-eleven, maybe, and he has a nasty cut on his right cheek," —and he turns away with a muttered curse. He free jumps onto the closest roof— "Oh, wow, and he moves like a spider monkey," Nelson says— and makes a run for it, until Nelson's voice is distant enough to lose if he doesn't listen for it.

He's halfway back home when he realizes that he forgot to ask about the IT guy.

Well.

He'll just have to meet Nelson again, won't he.


	2. Chapter 2

Thing is, Matt doesn't want to hurt anyone. He has to tell himself that, sometimes, when he's peeling the tape off his wrists while his gloves soak in the sink, and the smell of blood fills the room. He doesn't want to hurt people. He _has_ to. Maybe it's been a long time since he lied to himself about whether it feels good, because of course it feels good send teeth clattering out of the mouths of bad men. He's yet to find something that feels better.

But that's not why he does it.

For that reason, Foggy is a godsend.

If Matt could go around beating secrets out of any old innocent person, he'd have gotten a lot farther than he is now. There are people scattered everywhere with access to information he might need, but they're naive people. Good people. His methods revolve around intimidation and what legally amounts to torture, and those aren't the kinds of things he wants to bring to the doorsteps of good people.

Foggy, though. Foggy doesn't need to be beaten or shoved off a building to contribute to the good fight. He just needs a little push, Matt thinks.

It's worth a try, anyway.

 **x+x**

Foggy likes to take his breaks in the alleyway behind L & Z. Marci gives him lip about it, but it's the only place he can find on the property that doesn't make him feel like a douche. Every day, he leaves his jacket over the back of his fancy lumbar support chair, shoves his sleeves up to his elbows, and carries his takeout down to the stairs outside the door the custodial staff likes to use. He knows most of them, if not by name then by face, and sometimes they'll shoot the breeze if their breaks coincide.

When he started, he didn't have time to take lunch, much less make conversation. It was nonstop and cutthroat, and he only got this job because he hardly ate or slept for months as an intern.

Now that he's made it, the best part of his day is sitting in an alley with his tie over his shoulder and pretending that he's somewhere else. Back in college, maybe, when it had felt like his struggles would end once he passed the bar. Not that he's _struggling_ here. He has disposable income for the first time in his life and benefits that would make twenty-year-old him cry. In a few months, he'll even be able to move out of his matchbox apartment into someplace big enough to at least invite his family for dinner. Objectively, things are going well.

Foggy has never been awesome at being completely objective, though, and that's what makes his stomach twist every time he steps through his office door. He can't believe he used to think that he'd go into defense and actually make a difference. Instead he's on retainer for a slumlord and he almost _got fucking shot twice in one night_.

He puts his takeout aside, grimacing. He wasn't able to finish it today at lunch, and he can't finish it now, either, even though it's almost nine and he should be starving. They're going to be here until all hours of the night wrapping up a settlement, and Marci told him to get some air and come back when he's useful, but he doesn't see much chance of that happening.

He's trying not to dwell on his two-for-one near-death experience, and succeeding about as much as someone can by thinking _don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it_ ad nauseam. Sensations keep pouncing on him, a flicker of fear straight from his heart to his fingers, quick flashes of a gun pointed his way. The whip of a mask-clad shadow, bloody fisted, yelling as he almost beats a man to death.

Dirty cops, he said. Wilson Fisk, he said.

One of the cops offed himself in his cell. The other was killed when her interrogation became a violent struggle. Evan from IT died in his hospital bed of a complication the doctors never saw coming, a shock to the girlfriend who'd been told she'd have him back home within the week.

Foggy doesn't believe in conspiracy theories. Elvis is dead, the moon landing was real, and jet fuel _can_ melt steel beams, when it's heated to 1800 degrees. But he isn't stupid, either; he knows something fishy when he smells it. These deaths are not coincidences. Stars don't align like that unless someone's pulling strings. Sure, the man in the mask could have ninja'd in and staged it all, but why go to the trouble of covering it up when he could have killed them in the cover of night, and then done away with Foggy, the only witness? Foggy would have been an easy target, shaken as he was. He could have been shot, beaten to death, strangled— anything the Mask wanted, frankly, because the guy was like a Bruce Lee villain and Foggy is. Well. Foggy is aware that his life was not only saved, but _spared_ that night. It's really fucking with his worldview. He enjoyed hating the terrorist who blew up the city, thanks. It was nice to direct his anger at the state of Hell's Kitchen onto a single target, wearing archetypal black and a mask and the whole nine yards.

Maybe that's what the media had in mind, when they pinned the bombings on him.

"Ugh." Foggy puts his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. "Could've been a butcher," he says to no one, because the point of the joke is familiarity, not laughs.

That's why he almost pisses himself when a chuckle comes from the edge of the night.

He jerks toward the sound, knocking his takeout over. The masked man appears in the dark of the alley, visible only in relief where shafts from the streetlight down at the other end of the block cut behind him: floating head, hanging hands, shifting in and out of perception every time he takes a step forward. He stops a good twenty feet away.

"Evening stroll?" Foggy says, which he thinks would be a good save if his voice weren't shaking.

"Why haven't those officers been in the news?" the Mask says, in lieu of a hello, which— sure. Whatever. There's probably not a huge desire for formality when you're the kind of person who skulks around in costume looking for street fights. Foggy would just feel a bit better if the Mask didn't address him like this was a conversation they were continuing, since they shouldn't be talking at all.

"How did you find me?"

"I heard you tell those officers where you work."

"Oh, cool. That's cool. Thank you for stalking."

"The officers," the Mask prompts.

"They're dead," Foggy admits, because it isn't a great idea to give a vigilante information, but he's also not suicidal. "They were dead before I got the chance to press charges."

The Mask turns sharply away and hisses something under his breath, then turns back to Foggy. "How?"

"Suicide and some kind of altercation at the police station. Evan, the guy that Russian dude shot— him too. As a doornail."

"Who was he?"

Foggy sighs. "Evan? A nice kid, I guess, too young for all this. I hardly knew him. Wrong place, wrong time? Listen, I don't—" he stands up and brushes off his pants, feeling increasingly like he should get out of here. "If you think I won't call the police on you again, you're wrong."

The Mask's head cocks to one side, though he continues to face slightly downward. It's like talking to a scarecrow.

"Go on," he says, horribly low, horribly level. "Call."

Foggy's hand gets halfway to his phone before he falters.

Fuck.

He doesn't want to.

"Well, you— hm." He puts his hands in his pockets, decides that's rubbish, and tosses them up, sighing. "You got me, okay? I'm officially sucked in. I have to know what the fuck is going on with this dirty cop business that people are offing themselves and dying in secure rooms to keep it quiet. As someone who thrives on the justice system functioning the way it's supposed to, I hope you understand my concern."

The Mask smiles, dangerous and lopsided like a scythe, for half a breath, then he's grim again.

"Wilson Fisk," he says.

"You said that name before. Who is that?"

"He's the linchpin in all this. Everyone is on his bankroll, and everyone is afraid."

"Okay. More specifically, who is he?"

Tossing his head, the Mask shifts his shoulders. "I'm working on that."

"Seriously?" Foggy pushes a hand backwards through his hair. "That's what you have? Look, I want to do something about this. Hell's Kitchen is my home, and I want it to be safe. But if all you have is a name with nobody attached to it and a handful of conspiracy theories—"

"I'm close," the Mask says, stepping forward. He's just at the edge of the light over the stairs, where shadows sling down from his nose and the landscape of his shoulders. Foggy's eyes flick over the length of him before he can help himself. Dude's _ripped_. Makes him want to suck in his gut.

"Do you have access to records here?" the Mask asks.

Foggy backs away, raising a hand. "Whoa-ho. No. I'm not giving you any information. I haven't called the police yet, but that doesn't mean I'm about to aid and abet."

"If I could look into Evan, there may be a connection—"

"The answer is no." Foggy makes a show of going for his phone, and feels a thrill in his chest when the Mask steps back. Maybe he has more control here than he thought. He leaves the phone in his pocket. "I don't even know what you'd do with the information." He squints. "What _do_ you do? Aside from the, uh, parkour and Mortal Kombat."

"I'm just trying to find answers."

"And I'm guessing you'd be confessing to crimes if you got more specific."

"I don't kill people," the Mask says, suddenly harsh, stepping into Foggy's space.

Foggy stumbles backwards and puts his hands up on reflex. "Okay, whatever you say— could you stay over there? I don't—"

The Mask draws back immediately, so there's that, at least.

"Look," Foggy sighs, hands still up, trying not to visibly shake, "I don't know what I did to deserve getting mixed up in this, but it's your word against theirs on whether you blew up half of Hell's Kitchen, so this isn't a friendship, okay? I don't trust you."

"I'm not asking for trust."

"Semantics. I'm not giving you any information."

A hard line settles across the Mask's mouth and he gathers up his shoulders, fists tightening. For a moment Foggy thinks he's earned a beating for his refusal— no good deed, and all that— but the hit never comes. The shadow in the dip of the Mask's torso deepens as he pulls a long breath, then he sighs out, "You don't have to tell me what you find. You should still look."

Foggy frowns. "What?"

"Look into Evan. The more good people know the truth, the better. I can't make you share the information with me, but someone should know what's really going on."

"But once I know, I might want to share with my neighborhood vigilante, out of the goodness of my heart. Is that what you're saying?"

The Mask huffs out a thin sound— amused, if Foggy had to guess. "Like I said. I can't make you."

That is not true. Foggy's seen the guy in a fight. It wouldn't take too much convincing if Foggy found himself on the wrong end of that right hook, but he certainly isn't saying that.

"Fine," he says, spreading his hands, palms down at his sides, more to steady himself than anything. "I might. Now, if you're done…" He pulls out his phone and mimes beginning to dial, with his finger raised only somewhat dramatically.

The Mask lifts his hands in surrender. "Think about it," he says as he begins to walk backwards. "This city needs people like you." And with that, he's gone, vanished around a corner.

It takes Foggy about thirty seconds to decide he's not going to report the Mask, thirty more seconds to realize that _no_ , that's a terrible idea and he should absolutely call this in, then a final thirty seconds to ask himself where he would be, if someone else had gotten the Mask arrested before Foggy needed help. Maybe the police would have arrived in time, but the police weren't exactly the good guys there, were they? Not all of them, anyway.

Sighing deeply, he turns to gather his fallen takeout back into its box, then tosses the whole thing into a nearby dumpster. His heart tap-dances and his knees are adrenaline-wobbly.

All he wanted was some fresh air.

When he gets back inside, he finds himself heading down to HR. He catches Cindy the executive manager just as she's packing up, and it only takes a few minutes of good-natured commiseration about the late hours and a Reader's Digest account of Evan's last night for her to invite Foggy back into the filing room. Five minutes later he leaves with the file under his arm. He takes the elevator and stops it halfway up to read in peace.

He doesn't know what he expected to find but, it wasn't _disappointment_.

He blinks at the papers in his hands, minimal and mundane: an excerpt of someone's life, cut short. No reason, no clues. He didn't think he'd find CIA files striped in government redactions or anything, but the spotless performance reviews and brief account of prior work experience— Best Buy being the most impressive item— don't exactly excite.

He wonders what the Mask expected to find, and then shakes his head against the thought, because he doesn't _care_. He was supposed to put this behind him, not get sucked into it. He certainly isn't supposed to wish he could tell the Mask there's nothing to know, so that maybe he would quit this crusading business before more people got killed.

"You, Foggy Nelson, are a goddamn sucker," he says to the elevator, and it doesn't disagree.

 **x+x**

 _Karen. Karen. Karen. Kar_ —

"Hello?"

" _Hey, Matt, it's Karen_." She says this every time she calls, like she does when they're in person and she approaches him on the street. " _I'm not waking you, am I?_ "

"No," Matt says, though the scritch in his voice probably betrays him. He sits up in bed, wiping at his face. "No, what's up?"

Static and ambient noise carry across the line. They haven't spoken since she told him she's investigating Union Allied with Ben Urich. Maybe Matt got a little too upset, but- it's not safe out there. She needs to understand that.

He can her her lips part around two false starts before she says,

" _You wanna meet for lunch? Noon, at that sandwich place you like?_ "

"Sure. Everything okay?"

" _Yeah,_ " she says too fast. " _See you then?_ "

"See you then."

He hangs up, then swings his legs over the edge of the bed, but stops halfway to his feet with a groan. He'll have to spend a some time stretching if he wants to look human by the time he meets Karen. Sometimes the morning stiffness is a reminder of a job well done, but right now he'd rather forget that he spent most of the past eight hours knocking heads together and still doesn't have any leads on the last Russian or the IT kid. He hoped to learn something, since he's been dead in the water after Stick fucked up his chances with Owlsely, but Nelson gave him nothing, and none of the glass jaws on the street would talk.

It's a bitch to clear all of this from his mind, but he finally manages to do it as he stretches. The good ache threads through him, a warm lick through his joints that chases the bad aches away. Though he knows his wrung-out body could use any amount of this, he cuts it short after thirty minutes to take a utilitarian shower, and ten minutes later he's out the door, cane tapping the sidewalk.

He meets Karen outside the eatery at five 'til, and they hardly exchange more than pleasantries before ordering. While they work on their lunches, it's nothing but silverware clinking, the conversation from surrounding tables, and the chatter of a turned-down radio in the kitchen. Karen doesn't eat slowly, but Matt is still getting tired of listening to her sip her soup by the time her spoon clatters down and she says,

"I took Foggy over to Elena's apartment."

Matt straightens. "Foggy Nelson? The attorney on the other side of her tenancy case?"

Karen shifts her feet under the table. "I thought it might, you know, give him a little push toward finding something we could use against Tully."

"Karen, you can't fraternize with the opposing counsel—"

"I'm just the assistant, Matt," Karen says, with an throaty sort of exhale that means she wants to raise her voice. "There's nothing keeping me from doing what I can to help Elena. It's not like we have other clients. You can't expect me to just sit at the office and do nothing while her home is in jeopardy."

Mouth pulling tight, Matt twists the handle of his cane. Karen seems to take his silence as surrender.

"We didn't tell her Foggy was representing Tully, obviously," she says. "She actually knew of him already through a friend of a friend or something— apparently she wanted him to represent her, but they turned her away at L & Z before they even heard her complaint. Foggy took it hard when she told us that."

Of course he did. "Do you think it helped?"

Karen's facial muscles strain toward a distressed squiggle of movement in her center face: a cringe, Matt thinks. She probably doesn't realize, but she's more expressive when she thinks no one is looking. Most people are.

"Well," she says, tilting her head toward her hands as she spreads them, long delicate fingers dragging across the tabletop, "they really hit it off. We tried to help her clean the place up, but it's— it's bad, Matt. Foggy felt terrible. He started talking like he might try to pass Tully to someone else."

"No— Karen, that's not good." Matt leans forward. "Nelson is our in. Ms. Cardenas's case is hopeless if we lose him."

"I know, I know. I tried to tell him that, but he started saying all this stuff about how he's just making it worse, and— ah. We were pr- kinda drunk by then."

Matt pulls back, eyebrows lifting.

"Not like that!" Karen lifts her hands, palms forward. Her heart is steady, if quick. "Nothing like that. He noticed that I- Look, I was feeling bad about Elena, and he said we should, and I quote, drink away our sorrows." She sighs. "It was fun. He's a good guy, Matt. You'd really like him. Actually, we- we tried to invite you. You didn't answer."

 _You never answer_ , is what she means.

Hands working at his cane, Matt settles his back against his chair. He didn't have a chance to listen to Karen's messages when he got home last night, and he hadn't thought about it this morning.

"I'm sorry. I was busy." Getting kidney-punched, probably. His back is killing him.

"You know, you—" Karen's voice pinches off. "We haven't known each other for very long, Matt. I get that. And you're a private person…"

Matt works his mouth. "Karen—"

"I just want you to let me know if you need something, okay? I can help you. I _want_ to help you. I owe you that much, after everything you've done for me."

"No, Karen. Listen." He leans in, and has to temper the urge to reach for her hand. He may be partial to her, but he's felt the way her heart and her breathing quicken when they stand too close— he doesn't want to give her the wrong idea. "What happened to you was unfair. You stood up to injustice when you saw it, and they punished you for doing the right thing. That isn't your fault. It's theirs. You don't owe me anything for what they did."

Her eyes go watery, and her lips go bitten inside her mouth. She inhales to say something, but her heart picks up like a lie is coming, so it's just as well that her throat tightens and she remains quiet.

In the pause, the air conditioning kicks on; Matt senses her profile against the current, how the air laps across the smooth planes of her cheeks and arcs sharply off her nose. Her hair flutters around the smooth pillar of her neck, over the shoulders she always holds strong, even when it's hard. She's beautiful, in the way that tragic things often are.

"I just worry," she says, faint. "You keep coming in all cut up. I can't help—" She breathes out hard through her nose, hair sliding off her shoulders in pieces as she turns away. Her hair is the life of her, sometimes, tumbling down and bouncing in wisps when she holds the rest of herself so still. If this was a very different sort of life, he would ask to touch it.

"I'm fine, Karen," he says. "I told you, I've been a little distracted lately. I just need to pay more attention to where I'm going."

She doesn't reply, but her eyes get wetter.

"I don't want you to worry about me."

That gets him a cruel laugh, and a sniffle that she tries to block against her hand. "Yeah. Well." She crosses her arms, then undoes them and grips the edge of the table with her arms poised to push off. "I just wanted to check on you."

Mass grits his teeth. "Karen."

"Thanks for meeting me, Matt," she says, soft, and leaves him at the table alone.

 **x+x**

Matt feels he could touch the whole city, when it rains like this.

He crouches on the building across from Landman & Zack, dripping, waiting. Thousands of raindrops impact the sidewalk below, micro-explosions of motion across every surface, a march like something living. Normally he can hear, but today he can _feel_ the papers on the sidewalk, the trash bags, the dog that shakes as it trots by. He's down there with them, soaking. He's up here, above it all, seeing it all in a sense more real than light or color could ever convey. The rain is everywhere, and so is he.

Tonight, he's given out a lot of information. Ben Urich's hands are good ones, he thinks, the kinds that craft public opinion and don't get dirty. Maybe this will be the end of Fisk, but he's thought that before, so he doesn't let optimism tempt him. Instead, he keeps himself busy. He's done all he can about Fisk for the moment, but there's still the matter of the Russian and the IT kid, caught splinter-like in the edge of his mind. Maybe it's nothing, but that's the kind of thought that keeps companies like Union Allied standing, so here he is, waiting for Nelson.

Last time was a bust, but Matt thinks, if he leans on Nelson just a little more, that he can get him to crack. If anything, Nelson's resolve is a positive sign. He's reliable.

Still: this kind of thing is a lot easier when Matt can just beat it out of them.

Thirty minutes and half as many umbrellas pass by before Nelson leaves Landman & Zack, jogging with a newspaper over his head. Matt smirks at the idea, then proceeds to tail him. Two blocks down, Nelson crosses the street to Matt's side, and Matt races ahead, then scales down to a shop-front that he can leap off of without taking too much impact to his knees.

Water scatters when he hits the sidewalk. Nelson yelps and nearly leaves his skin, heartbeat rising to rival the rain. He opens his mouth, but Matt talks over him:

"Did you look into it?"

Though Nelson doesn't move deliberately, Matt can feel every wet shift of him; his toes curl in his socks, going soggier every second they stand there, and the thin, smooth sheafs of his hair tighten into each chords heavy with water. He breathes shallowly.

"Yeah."

Matt's heart quickens. He can hear it sometimes, separating suddenly from the white noise, the most truthful part of him.

"Got anything?" he asks, voice even.

"I wouldn't tell you if I did," Nelson says. "But I don't. Nothing in his file except his job application and some performance reviews." Raindrops converge in the wrinkle at the top of his nose, catch in his eyebrows and drip into his lashes. He lowers his arms and lets the newspaper hang from his fingers, disintegrated halfway to uselessness. "What were you expecting?"

Water scatters off Matt's brow as he tilts his head away. "Could have been anything. The Russians had their stake in a lot. None of it was good."

Nelson's heart begins to pound. "Is that why you blew them up?"

For a moment the rain seems to catch, halted on a sudden swell of white-hot anger, blurring Matt's senses. He hears himself breathing, and nothing else. Then it comes down all at once, thunderous, a torrent of pavement and brick and skin all so clear it feels like it's pressing in on him.

"I had nothing to do with that," Matt hisses.

"Can you prove to me that it wasn't you?"

Matt's fist trembles at his side. "You think I'd do that to my city?"

Nelson casts his arms out and makes a sound in his throat like a quiet death. "I don't know what I think you'd do, man! I don't actually _know_ you at all! You're just a guy in a mask who I trust not to kill me, but I don't trust you not to kill other people—"

"I don't do that," Matt cuts in, sharp, too much hurt in his voice. "I've told you. It was Fisk. I've never killed anyone and I'm never going to."

At least, that's the plan.

And Nelson seems to catch it, that ever so slight hesitancy. He tosses the newspaper away, then draws a deep breath, punched-through by raindrops, and hisses, "That's the kind of promise I can't take on faith, buddy! The only thing I know about you for sure is that you're really into justice, and you're really good at hitting things with your fists, and I have no guarantee that those two things won't converge into murder one of these days!" He casts out his hands. "Who's gonna hold you back if you start seeing red? Who's gonna keep you from crossing that line, huh?"

"God," Matt says, knee-jerk, and almost flinches when Nelson gasps out a laugh. It's not a kind sound.

Nelson's agitated hands fall to his sides, a squelch of his too-tight jacket shifting against his arms. "And you're a zealot. That's great."

Matt scoffs and tosses his head to one side, gathering himself, before turning back towards Nelson. "That's not why I do this. I'm doing this because it's right." Nelson huffs and breathes like he's going to talk, but Matt keeps going. "I have morals, I talk to my priest, but I'm not a zealot. I've— of course I've wanted to kill people. When you have a contract killer, or human trafficker, or a child molester up against the ropes, you want to make sure they can never hurt anyone again. There's going to be a moment where you think about just ending them. It would be easy. It might even be _best_. It's— it's a choice I make, every time, to let them keep living, because in the end, it isn't my decision." He wants to say more, but he finds his throat suddenly tight and has to steady himself; he shifts on his feet, gathers his shoulders, and feels his left hand moving on reflex, a tick he's prone to.

Though he expected Nelson to say something, the rain claims several moments. Matt licks his lips and tastes the earth, and pollution, and several other abstract concepts that would take hours to untangle into their individual sensory parts. He can sense the shape of Nelson clearly, now. His undershirt clings to his back, revealing a broad, soft plane and the knotted muscles at the top where he bends over his desk all day. Matt could count his moles, if he wanted to.

He doesn't.

"Have you," Nelson starts, finally, voice small, "have you really stopped those people? Traffickers, and…" He gestures loosely, to convey the kinds of things nice people don't like to think about.

Matt nods. He doesn't trust himself to speak.

Nelson sighs, long like a surrender. He puts a hand to his brow, then drops it. "Listen, I know you're just trying to do the right thing. You've made that clear. But there's— jeez, man, there are ways to do that without dressing in black and beating the shit out of people in alleys. How old are you? Twenties, thirties? You still have plenty of time to go through the police academy, or, hell, law school, if you're that into seeing the look in their eyes the moment you take them down."

A laugh jerks out of Matt before he can stop it, harsh and dark. "Do you really think I could make a difference that way, in a city this corrupt?"

"It wouldn't be corrupt if there were more good people on the inside."

"You think good people alone can fix a bad system?"

"I think it's better to do things by the book then to be named Devil by the city you're trying to protect, yeah."

Matt squares his shoulders. "If that's the price of opposing injustice, then the devil is what I'll have to be."

With a derisive chuckle, Nelson shakes his head; his hair sticks to him. "Wow, that's very inspirational. But you know where the devil lives, bud? I'll give you a hint: the road there is paved with good intentions."

Matt casts his hands out, indicating the city at large. "It's called Hell's Kitchen for a reason."

"I'm talking about actual hell, which is where you might end up when these guys inevitably kill you. You know that's what's gonna happen, right? I mean, you're—" his heartbeat stutters, maybe not a lie but definitely not what he actually wants to say "—you're impressive as hell in a fight, but I'm guessing even you can't karate chop a bullet."

"I'm careful."

"Are you even wearing body armor?"

A grin slices across Matt's mouth. "Are you worried about me?"

Nelson's heartbeat does something really wild, nervous as hell, and it's truly impressive that he doesn't indicate it with his voice when he says, "I'm a counselor. I counsel."

"I never asked for counsel."

"Hey, people pay the big bucks for my expertise. You're getting it for free out of the goodness of my heart."

It's a joke, but Matt doubts Nelson knows how good his heart actually is. Most people don't talk to the Mask like there's an actual person underneath it; here Nelson is, actually _worried_ about that person.

"Thank you," Matt says. There's too much weight in his voice, but he goes on anyway. "I can't prove that I didn't set those bombs. If I had evidence, I would have made sure it got into print by now. I don't—" he's saying too much, now, but Foggy's body language is more open than it's ever been and he can't stop himself, "—I _love_ this city, and for everyone to believe that I would do something like this to good people, innocent people, I—" he clenches his teeth. "All I have is my word. I didn't do it. I would never."

An organic burst of moisture hits the air, Nelson licking his lips. He opens his mouth around a small breath, then says, "I want to believe you."

Matt smiles with only one side of his mouth. "But you don't."

"I'm into evidence. Law school does that to you."

"Testimony's not enough?"

"If only, buddy," Nelson says, faint, and then folds his hands together behind his head. Deodorant and a smell not unlike wet dog hit the air, probably to do with the mold that grows in his closet. "Alright. Listen. I'm not promising you any more information by telling you this, but I— I wanna be ready if shit goes south."

In the pause, Matt draws forward. Nelson breathes a long sigh, highlighting the shapes of his cheeks, and says,

"There's a new client at L & Z. I'm not on the team, but they're throwing his name around a lot."

Matt knows just from that, but he asks anyway.

"Fisk?"

Nelson nods back against his hands. "Best people in the firm are representing him, and they're scrambling. It's like they just heard Jesus is coming and they have to lay out all the palm leaves or some shit. No one will say exactly what, but— he's about to do something big."

Consciously, Matt has to keep his fists from tightening, make his shoulders hang loose. It'd be no use startling Nelson off, no matter how Matt wants to climb a fucking _wall_ right now. "What else can you find out?"

Dropping his hands, Nelson groans. "I don't have access to any of that information. Not legally. I know that's not a big deal for you, but some of us have jobs to keep. And standards."

"You hate your job," Matt says, sharp and really too much.

Nelson's face loosens then pinches up. "Am I that obvious?"

"Call me observant."

"Sure," Nelson sighs. "Look, I'm— I'll keep an eye on it. If anything smells really fishy, I'll ask Brett to look into it. He trusts me. I mean, he hates me, but he'll listen."

Matt works his mouth. It's as much as he can ask for. "Thank you," he says again.

"You really wanna thank me? Quit making my life so complicated."

"You did that yourself when you decided to practice law in Hell's Kitchen."

"Hey," Nelson points at him, and Matt gets a distinct flash of his fingernail, slick and with dirt wedged under the corner. "Hell's Kitchen was posh and gentrified when I started on my degree. If you think I should have seen the fucking _aliens_ coming—"

"No one saw this coming. We're all just doing what we can."

Nelson laughs in the privacy of his mouth, and Matt leans toward it.

"If that's how you justify it," Nelson says.

Though Matt is tempted to engage the topic further, he knows they've beaten the horse for all it's worth. He shifts on his feet, takes in one last breath of rain and dirt and Nelson's scent, stripped to its earthy base notes by the water, and turns to go.

"Wait, about the bombings—" Nelson calls.

Matt stops.

"If you ever get that evidence, I... I might know a lawyer stupid enough to defend you. Should it come to that."

Matt keeps his back to Nelson. He turns his ear toward him. "Yeah?"

"Real moron. He's regretting the offer as he's giving it, actually."

"Not a stunning recommendation. Why do I want this lawyer, again?"

"Because he cares about Hell's Kitchen as much as you do, and he's willing to defend a maniac in a mask if that means giving these people the truth they deserve." He wipes a hand over his mouth. "He hates talking about himself in third person, by the way."

"Thank you, Nelson."

"Don't thank me until you have evidence to put in my hands, pal. If you come into my office during my eleven o'clock with that mask on and a bunch of hearsay, I _will_ drop you like third period French."

Matt smiles, lips together. It feels like someone else's mouth. "Duly noted."

"Yeah, good. Now you- you get out of here before I say something else I regret."

"Of course, counselor," Matt says, and vaults up onto the closest shop awning, then climbs toward the roof. Nelson stands there in the rain, staring after him, for a long time once he's gone.

Finally, three blocks away, Matt can't feel him anymore.

 **x+x**

Foggy may or may not spend the rest of his sleepless night with his phone in one hand and his laptop under the other, digging for information on the Devil of Hell's Kitchen: news stories, blog entries, Twitter rants, grainy security footage, blurry cell phone videos, blurrier snapchat stories with captions like _talk shit get HIT son_

He may or may not sit there, absorbing all of this, and have trouble proving to himself beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Mask has committed acts of terrorism.

He may or may not, after the dozenth frantic tweet that says _devil saved my fuckin LIFE fam_ , begin to form an attachment to the fluid shadow with the snake-strike fists.

He may or may not consider putting everything on the line to help the Mask expose Wilson Fisk for doing— well, whatever it is he's doing.

Of course, after all that has or hasn't happened, the morning news comes on.

" _I'm not very good at this, out, being in public,_ " says Fisk, like a schoolboy giving his first speech, " _but I felt the need to speak up for this city that I love with all my heart._ "

Foggy sits, and he watches, and his mouth hangs open a little. He can't believe how alike they sound, the man who invokes the light and the man who appears in the dark. He knows which one he wants to believe, by now, but he also knows his objectivity is shot to hell.

At work, everyone's talking about it. They scramble to praise Fisk and slander the Devil, and Foggy stands in their midst, like a sinner in church, wondering how long it'll take for the Mask to go down in a hail of public outrage.

Or bullets.

That would be decidedly worse.

 **x+x**

Matt is not afraid of dying. He's afraid of leaving people behind.

He realized it when he was dragging himself out of the bay, still close enough to smell Nobu's body burning and so wet that the blood ran fast as the water through his fingers. Struggling to his feet, he was struck anew by an entirely different kind of agony: Karen would never know what happened to him. She would be alone in the world and wondering where Matt went, waiting for him at work and calling him, calling him, never getting an answer, assuming the worst, and God, she wouldn't be able to guess the half of it— and suddenly he thought of Foggy.

Not that he had any illusions that Foggy would miss him, but Jesus, the list of people he cared about was only about three entires long, and none of them would know. He _wanted_ Foggy to know. Foggy, who recognized him only as this angry shadow of himself, Foggy, who cared despite that— Matt wanted him to know, at least, that he died without becoming a murderer. It was all he could really claim, at this point, dizzy and losing blood like he could bleed himself the river Styx and ride it all the way down.

 _You know where the devil lives, bud?_

He doesn't remember how far he got before fading out. He doesn't remember calling Claire, either, but he thanks God that he did. She was by his side when he woke, moving terse and breathing thin, like she wanted to yell but wasn't going to because it would make her cry.

"It's a miracle you aren't dead," she said, a condemnation.

Matt didn't apologize. The glassware in his cabinets kept rattling long after she slammed the door.

He told Karen he wasn't feeling well when she called, which was not a lie. He also told her that it was contagious so she should keep her distance, which was a lie, though not exactly wrong. Everything was pain and failure from Matt's limited vantage, and he'd just drag her down if she saw him in this state. It was for the best to keep her away.

For a few days, he drifted between sleep and half-remembered flashes of blades slicing through the air, through his body. He only took about half of Claire's prescribed regimen of painkillers, telling himself all the while that it was to keep his tolerance down. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it was self-flagellation, but if it was, that was no one's business but his own. He tried to meditate but found it impossible. He lay on his aching side and thought of his father, and Claire, and Karen, and Foggy, and how there would always be a gulf between him and other people. He thought, maybe, that Stick was right about attachments, how they made him soft. He reproached himself for thinking Stick was right. He thought that it would have been easier if Nobu had just killed him. He reproached himself for that, too.

Things got better when he was finally steady enough to walk around.

It was then, once he pulled himself out of the grave he'd dug on the couch, that he decided he had to go see Foggy. Leaning over the sink, brushing his teeth for the first time in days and trying not to let his mind wander too far, he suddenly felt that it was the most important thing in the world to let Foggy know he was okay. Not that Foggy even knew he'd been hurt, but if he was the sort of guy who worried about Elena Cardenas and tried to deescalate hostage situations, he might have noticed that the Devil of Hell's Kitchen had been quiet. He might even be worried.

Not that— not that Matt is counting on that, but. He doesn't want Foggy to worry. That's why, despite knowing better, he finds himself standing out back of Landman & Zack as soon as he can pass for being half-alive, without a reason and without an excuse.

He waits.

The squeak of Foggy's approaching shoes fills his chest with something he doesn't want to name.

"Long day?"

"Fuck!" Foggy nearly drops his belongings, door hitting him on the back.

Matt has to suppress a grin.

Foggy drags a breath, then says, high but even, "Good to see you, too." He lets the door close behind him. "You look like shit. Who did that to you, so I can avoid them?"

Matt presses his lips tight. "No one you'll run into."

"I hope not."

Rigid, Matt holds his ground and fiddles with his hands. Foggy watches him for a long moment, then sinks slowly onto the back steps and sets his things aside. Briefcase, food— he was planning on working out here for a while, Matt thinks.

He resists jumping to the conclusion that Foggy was coming out here to wait for him. Matt isn't above optimism, even after everything, but that would be a reach.

"So…" Foggy draws it out, working his knees with jittery hands. "Is this a social call?"

Maybe it is. Matt shifts, flexes his hands. "Anything new on Fisk?"

Foggy sighs. "I assume you've seen the news."

Matt nods.

"That's it. Nothing suspicious about him except how suspiciously _clean_ he is."

"Do you believe him?"

"I have no reason not to."

"About me."

Foggy looks down, then jerks one shoulder in half a shrug. "I don't know, buddy. How about I plead the fifth on that one."

Reflexively, Matt wants to tell him that no one's going to be incriminated here, if they tell the truth. Then he thinks of Foggy on the witness stand, trying to explain why he kept fraternizing with an alleged terrorist, and keeps his mouth shut.

"I looked you up online," Foggy says after a moment, with a truly farcical air of casualty.

Matt raises his eyebrows.

"The internet loves you. They have _archives_ of footage." Matt must tense, because Foggy raises a placating sort of hand. "Nothing quality enough that anybody could identify your face, you understand, but there's a lot of it, and I'm pretty sure a good chunk of it is really you. You have a following, dude. They've got some of everything. You have a subreddit. You have snapchats. I didn't actually understand what a snapchat was until last night."

For someone who hasn't been able to see a screen since age nine, Matt thinks he has a pretty good idea of what snapchat is. He doesn't want to get caught out, though, so he deflects. "I don't keep up with any of that."

"Ha! I knew you were old." Finally easing his rigid spine, Foggy rests his elbows on his knees. "How old are you? Or is that more of a second date question?"

"It's really not important."

"Guess not," Foggy says, and pops open his takeout. The moment the lid is off, Matt recognizes the food from the Indian joint down the street. He's never been inside, but the smell is unmistakable; they get their black cardamom straight from India, pure and unprocessed and ground in the shop, and it's like nothing he's ever smelled. When it hits his olfactory, he's all but transported.

"So, what's your gig?"

It takes Matt a moment. He cocks his head in the direction of Foggy's voice. "Gig?"

"Well, sure." Foggy takes a moment to chew, and makes a rolling gesture with one hand, wrist grinding. Sounds like impending carpal tunnel. "Your gig. Super strength? Super speed?"

Matt startles himself by laughing.

"What? Forgive me for thinking the guy who goes flipping through the night in a mask has super powers. I've seen all of it now. Those fights you get into are _bananas_ , dude. It must be like— hell, I don't know. Super agility?"

"No," Matt says, shaking his head like that will rattle his urge to grin. "No, I'm just a guy."

Foggy tosses his head back and groans. "Come on, man, don't say that. If you don't have any super powers, then there's nothing but bad grades in gym class keeping a guy like me from being a guy like you. My delicate ego can't take that kind of a blow."

A laugh bubbles up to the top of Matt's throat, but he tempers himself, trying not to show too much. The buzz of the nearest light tells him that it's probably too dark for Foggy to see him well, but a laugh could be just as distinctive as a face, if he keeps this up.

"Well," he says, once he feels more grounded, though it's difficult to achieve a serious tone when he's still tempering a smile. "It's not exactly a superpower."

"Yes!" Foggy points at him, sending the stagnant air around him scattering. "I knew it! ESP?"

Matt shakes his head. "That's definitely a superpower."

"Fine. Don't leave me hanging, here."

"I've already told you too much," Matt says, and regrets that it's more than just a line. He's already implied to Foggy more than he's told anyone— sure, people have _known_ , but to tell someone of his his own volition, without them catching him in the act… That's a different animal entirely.

"Tease," says Foggy, but doesn't push it further.

Matt wants to think it's a gesture of trust, but Foggy's heart rate has yet to drop to resting during any of their interactions. It's hard to trust someone who won't show their face, he supposes.

"It doesn't give me as much of an edge as you might think," he finds himself saying.

In the stale evening air, Matt can feel Foggy's brow raise. "I don't know, looks like an edge to me."

"It isn't. All of these sensationalized super-humans, Banner and Rogers. That's not me."

"Think I figured that one out on my own. You'd be a lot more exciting if you had one of those outfits, though, I'm just saying. I see you in red."

Like the ghost of a severed limb, the color struggles against Matt's sense memory. He knows his sight was already gone, but sometimes when he recalls the drag of the letters under his fingers— _BATTLIN' JACK MURDOCK_ — he gets a shock of red with it.

He wishes he could know if he's remembering it right.

"So you like the devil motif," he says.

"I'm not saying go full-on horns and tail or anything." Foggy sets his takeout aside. "Hey, you're religious. Where does that cliche goatee-and-pitchfork iconography come from?"

"The pagans, probably."

"Ah, the pagans. My kind of people."

"The church used to take their idols and appropriate them, to make Christianity more familiar to the locals."

"Huh. What was the devil like before he got re-branded?"

Matt shrugs. "Beautiful."

"Oh, yeah. I remember." Foggy leans forward against his knees. "Got himself kicked out of heaven for thinking he was hot shit, right?"

"He was cast out for claiming he was better than God."

"Was he?"

Sucker-punches have startled Matt less. "What?"

"Was the devil better than God?"

"No," Matt says, far too emphatic. Always was a Catholic boy. "Lucifer was ambitious, but he didn't care about God's people. He was in it for his own gain."

Foggy's heart has evened down. He's confident, leaning back on one hand, facing Matt. "So you're saying," he says slowly, "that it's not up to one guy to make those big moral decisions, and we should just leave it up to God, or, say, whatever system is in place?"

A chuckle rises to the top of Matt's throat, scathing but smooth. He may like Foggy, but he won't give him the satisfaction of seeing him ruffled. "I don't know that we're talking about the same thing, anymore," he says.

"You know exactly what I mean. That speech you gave me last time we met, about it not being your decision to make about whether someone lives or dies, that was good stuff. I've been thinking about it. It's not just about you, you know. It goes both ways; that Russian who almost killed me shouldn't have had that choice. I plan to die of heart disease in my mid-seventies, as Nelson tradition dictates. But at the end of the day, it isn't up to me, either. I'm not religious, but even I know that one person can't push against fate, or God, or whatever your cup of tea is."

"You think I can't make a difference."

Foggy entertains a noise that dies halfway to becoming a word, then shakes his head. "Of course not. You've— I'm not condoning anything right now, for the record— but you've made a difference. There's…" he sighs. "There's this girl. Don't know if you remember her or not, but her name is Karen. I've been getting to know her, and she's incredible. The world would be a little darker if something happened to her, you know? And she wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. You saved her life."

The thought of Karen that night, dripping wet and wavering with a bruise blooming blood-hot on her crown, sits wedged between the places in Matt's heart that house love and fear. He swallows against the feeling.

"But?" Matt prompts.

" _But_ , you can't count on it to be that way every time. You didn't break any laws by helping her, but one day the person you go up against is gonna be someone like Fisk without a spot on them, or someone like— I don't know, whoever it is that beat you up. You're not invincible, in any sense of the word. Even if you don't get killed in a street brawl gunned down by the police, they're gonna catch you, and you will not pass go. You will not collect two-hundred dollars. I know I said…" He sighs. "Ah, man, all that stuff about defending you? I was riled up. You got me with your speeches, but it's just unrealistic. God himself couldn't defend you from a conviction at this point."

"I don't care about that." Matt steps forward. "I can't afford to. As long as people like you and Karen need my help, I can't back down. I can't fail this city."

"You're one hell of a broken record, you know that?"

"Why do you care?"

A hand goes to Foggy's temple, just on the wrong side of warm. He's starting to sweat. "I told you. Karen. And you—" he laughs, choked off, more to himself than anything. "Where am I going to find interesting conversation if you're off the streets?"

Matt doesn't know what to say to that, so it's probably for the better that he hears a gruff voice snarl, "Gimmie the purse," and the safety click off a gun.

"Shit," he hisses, turning toward the sound.

Foggy straightens. "What?"

"Someone's in trouble," Matt calls, already making for the nearest point to climb from. He hears the woman hand over her purse, and the robber makes a run for it without hurting her. Good. All he has to do is catch him.

"Seriously?" Foggy calls from below, becoming more distant by the moment as Matt makes for the roof. "Is that how it works? It _is_ ESP!"

It doesn't take long. The robber is just a kid, and Matt gives him a good scare and takes his gun. He'll throw it in the river later. The woman is frightened of him when he catches up with her, so he puts her purse on the sidewalk twenty feet away and backs off. She doesn't pick it up until he's well out of eyeshot.

Matt comes back for Foggy once he's done, but the alley is empty. Foggy's scent clings to the stairs, barely detectable beneath the lingering cardamom. Matt can't hear him inside the building, though he doubts he'd be able to pick him out of the crowd by anything other than his voice; there are still a lot of bodies working late.

It's just as well.

Still, he draws one last breath of Foggy's smell before he goes.

 **x+x**

On the Fourth of July, when the sun has been down for seventeen minutes and the fireworks are in full swing, Matt gets stabbed in the side by a jumped-up crackhead he wasn't even trying to fight. The knife goes across his ribs on the diagonal, far from anything vital, but the wound still bleeds like a temper tantrum. It's nothing he wouldn't be able to compartmentalize on a normal night. Tonight, however, the pyrotechnics keep disrupting his carefully constructed world— brilliant shrieks of explosives and acid foreign chemicals and sharp cracks like the sky itself is splintering under the pressure— and every time his concentration slips, the pain flares through his side like he's being stabbed all over again. He knows the difference between a firework gunshot, but he's just disoriented enough that every distant pop puts him on alert. He's beginning to find it difficult to tell whether the children's screams shooting up through the night are filled with joy or terror.

He doesn't trust his senses to get him across the rooftops right now, and the last thing he needs in his condition is a fall, so he trudges through alleyways. Between the high backs of the buildings, the cacophony of the city is cut into echoes. It's quieter, maybe, but no easier to orient himself. Volume doesn't make a huge difference when every sound hits him several times over, from new and exciting angles. Half the racket is drowned out by his own teeth grinding, a habit of exertion that he can't help as he clutches his side, unable to gauge the blood loss without his focus. He's gotta ground himself if he wants to make it to his apartment.

A number of people are still on the streets. Even from such a distance, Matt can feel the congregation of body heat in Central Park and Times Square, but Hell's Kitchen is a bit quieter. He casts out for someone, something to stabilize himself: a distinctive walk, a strong heartbeat, someone humming to themselves as they pass on the sidewalk. He moves from person to person, clinging to their little human sounds until they're too distant easily pick out of the chaos. An effeminate voice sings a song he doesn't know, and Matt cleaves himself to the noise for more than a block before the singer hails a cab and vanishes. Halfway to gathering himself, he gasps out at the surge of noise and pain and exhaustion that flood in when the voice escapes his earshot, taking his focus with it. He tosses his head as he drags himself along, looking for something else, anything—

Foggy. He'd recognize him anywhere, those uncomfortable shoes carrying him at a determined rate, his heartbeat plodding steadily on, the scent of his sweat. Matt follows him in earnest, half a block behind, sticking to the shadows, even after it's clear they aren't going in the same direction. The cracking, searing noise of the occasion fades to the edges of Matt's world, and he's able to walk without a hand against the wall as the objects in his path orient themselves in his mind's eye. Stairs. Trash bags. Legs of a sleeping homeless man who had his first meal in days about forty-five minutes ago.

By the time Foggy jogs up the steps to an apartment building, Matt is centered enough to take proper inventory of himself. He leans against the side of the building and tracks Foggy's progress up to the fourth floor peripherally while he presses his hand against his side to assess the damage. Nothing life-threatening, but he's on his way to losing a lot of blood; if he tries to get home from here, he might pass out before he makes it. A while ago, he might have just said _fuck it_ and taken his chances, but after Nobu he knows he has to be more careful. He can't serve Hell's Kitchen if he's dead. He needs to get a compression on the wound, or at least lie still and let it try to clot, before he does anything else.

The most practical course of action is to ask Foggy for help. After everything, he has no reason to believe that Foggy would turn him away if he showed up in this state on his doorstep. But that's just— it's too much. Matt knows what he's been doing with Foggy all this time: going too far. He's self-aware enough to call it excessive and self-deprecating enough to keep going back, but there has to be a line somewhere. Entering Foggy's apartment, his actual life, is probably that line.

The fire escape outside Foggy's window, though, that's not quite over the line.

That's what he's going to keep telling himself, in any case.

While normally he'd be able to clear a story in seconds, it takes Matt a few minutes to make the climb, careful to keep his body steady and put the bulk of the stress on his uninjured side. All the while, he holds to the easy beat of Foggy's heart. Finally he makes it to the stairs, which he treads with near silence, then he ducks down beneath Foggy's window to catch his breath.

At this proximity, Foggy's sounds are clear as Matt's breathing. He focuses on them, archiving them from the loudest (footsteps, dresser draws sliding open and shut) to softest (the air he displaces as he moves) until everything is centered and quiet, and there's nothing in Matt's world but stillness and a distant feeling of safety. He leaves pieces of himself behind, from his stiff legs to his overheated scalp, until he's nothing more than his own steady heartbeat, without even a thought for his hand pressed against his wet side.

Thirty minutes pass.

He comes back to himself in stages. Like getting dressed, he fills his shoes first, then settles into his legs, then his torso— bleeding's stopped, pain's minimal, that's good— and spreads out finally into his arms and his head, physical again. A breeze breaks against his sweat-cooled clothes, sending a chill through him. Seems like it's the first good sensation he's felt in years.

He's steady enough; he could make it home now, even across the rooftops. A quick test of his senses reveals a more familiar world, thicker with sirens now than fireworks. Foggy breathes evenly, not asleep but getting there, about ten feet from Matt's back. The frame of the couch groans and change clinks between the cushions every time Foggy takes a breath. Matt wonders if he meant to fall asleep there.

When Matt stands to go, Foggy gasps. His heartbeat skyrockets.

Matt winces. Not as close to sleep as he thought, then.

"What the hell!" Foggy is up and opening the window well before Matt can decide if he's fit to jump off the fire escape or not. There's a crinkle of fabric against the windowsill as Foggy's upper body leans out against the breeze. "What's— holy shit, is that _your_ blood?"

Without facing him, Matt gathers his shoulders and makes a meaningless gesture with the hand that isn't holding his side. "It's nothing."

Fear sours the air, a mix of adrenaline and sweat. "It's someone else's? Did you—"

"It's mine," Matt snaps, turning halfway towards Foggy's distressed voice. After the night he's had, he doesn't want to be asked if he's a murderer. Not again. "It's— I'm fine. I just needed a place to catch my breath, and—" he tightens his mouth. "I was leaving."

Foggy scoffs in the upper end of his register as hair shifts against the back of his neck, a subtle shake. "Look, I know you've got your whole macho Lone Ranger thing to maintain, and I get that! Image is everything, whatever. But next time, you're welcome to actually ask for help instead of sitting out here and dying alone."

The breath in Matt's throat becomes a sound, maybe a laugh or a scoff; he's not sure. He feels like he doesn't know anything about himself when he's with Foggy.

"Hey, don't give me that. It's all very beautiful and tragic, but it would have been lousy to find you out here in the morning, is all I'm saying."

"Talking to a vigilante when he approaches you in a dark alley is one thing. Letting him into your home is more… deliberate."

Foggy casts his arms out in a seriously? gesture, then straightens and takes a step back from the window. His voice sounds more stable in the still apartment air than with the breeze pulling at it. "You're already here, buddy. I mean, I wasn't planning on ever _inviting_ you, if that's what you're getting at, but as far as being implacable, I'm already screwed after the number of times I've let you go. If they figure that out, making sure you don't bleed out would not be my most notable offense. I've got a first-aid kit."

Matt shakes his head, once, deliberate. "I'm not bleeding out. I'll— I'll keep it in mind, next time I'm in the neighborhood. I need to get back to my apartment."

Foggy makes a small sound, indeterminate and for that, interesting. Matt cocks his head towards it.

"What?"

"Well, you—" and Foggy laughs, stunted but real, "I knew that you didn't go around wearing the mask all the time, but. Hearing you say that makes me think, wow, you're a real guy, with an apartment and everything. You're gonna go put on socks and watch TV and take a shot of NyQuil after this, just like the rest of us. That's weird, buddy."

And Matt can't make himself move after that, even though he should, because Foggy is leaning against the windowsill again, and what he's just said is more than some people ever realize about Matt. Because, despite everything, he's disabled. People treat him like that one trait is his entire life, like there's nothing about him beyond that, like he's the Blind Guy and that's the extent of it. It kills him. It's not a complex about his abilities—

Okay. Maybe it is a complex, a little, because it's frustrating to never be able to break into a heedless run, or call out a liar, or walk through a new space with confidence, when he's more than capable of doing all those things— but it's more than that. _He's_ more than that, more than his blindness or his abilities, or even the mask.

And Foggy knows that. It's no novel realization on Foggy's part, just something natural that every person should assume about every other person. For that reason, it's all the more jarring when Matt realizes he needed to hear it so badly.

"Guess you have a day job, too," Foggy says, with an edge of humor that can't quite hide his curiosity.

Matt collects himself. "I do." He feels Foggy's heat lean forward, expectant. "I'm not telling you what it is."

"Damnit! Bouncer?" Foggy suggests, and Matt can't help but scoff. "No? You'd be legendary! Get out some of that aggression, at least. Hey!" He snaps his fingers. "That's it! You have one of those godawful desk jobs that make people go stir crazy, lose their marbles. Like— oh, shit, what did the guy in Fight Club do?"

He really should have left by know, but he finds himself facing Foggy. He's not sure when he turned around. "I don't know. I've never seen Fight Club."

"Never seen—!? Well, Jesus, don't watch it. You don't need any ideas. Oh— Insurance adjuster! That's it."

"I'm not an insurance adjuster," Matt says, and his voice is too light.

"Well, you gotta be something lame if you have to get yourself stabbed to have an exciting Fourth."

The catch in his side is worth laughing like this, genuinely. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting your Independence Day rager?"

"Oh-ho! He makes jokes! For your information, I was just on my way back out."

"You were asleep on the couch."

"Resting!" Foggy flings an accusatory finger out of the window. "Seriously, there's a bar in the neighborhood sets all the shots on fire. I was gonna go. Maybe—" Foggy's heartbeat stumbles. His breath catches over a few attempted words before he finally says, "You sure you're good, man? I can patch you up, give you some clean clothes, take you to get a drink. No shots in your state, but like. Some Jack for the pain, at least. If you wanted to spend the night like a real person."

Carried on the momentum of the banter, Matt says, "Are you asking me out, counselor?" before considering whether that's the kind of thing a wanted vigilante would say. He stiffens once it's out of his mouth.

Foggy, to his credit, rolls on steadily even though he's gone warm from chest to crown. "Would I have to, if I wanted you to let me help you?"

"I'm not that kind of girl," Matt says with a smile sharpened to cut, then inclines his head toward Foggy. "Thank you. You're—" his throat goes tight. This is too much. "Have fun, Foggy," he says, and jumps backwards off the fire escape.

Maybe he relishes Foggy's gasp of fear a bit too much, but he can't help it. It's nice to know someone cares. He lands crouching in the trash bags below, steeled against the awful things such a landing does to his side. His arms only shake a little when he vaults himself over the side of the dumpster.

As he jogs off, he catches Foggy hissing, "Son of a bitch is gonna kill me," and grins into the night.

 **x+x**

It happens in the morning, when Matt hasn't seen Foggy in several days.

He sits on his bed, straining against the pull of stiffness at his back and side to put on socks when the thought comes to him, unbidden: he wants to fit his hands against the softness of Foggy's waist and pull him close and feel the surprise as he kisses him on the mouth. Foggy's hands would be warm, when they hit Matt's sides, and he would be forward as he ran his office-soft fingertips over Matt's ragdoll skin, the stitches and popped seams of him. He'd say something shrewd but not mean, and Matt would laugh against his mouth. It would feel like belonging.

Several moments pass before Matt realizes what he's doing— sitting, heart ballooning inside of him, with one sock still in his hand— and is forced to stop and consider what it means.

He doesn't know.

It isn't the first time he's had _gay thoughts_. He's been attracted to men here and there, even made out with a few in college, exchanged a couple of handjobs. But it's the first time that the idea has come to him, separate from lust or alcohol, that he wants intimacy with a man. Hell, it's the first time he's thought seriously about anyone since Elektra. Not that Elektra ever gave him that sort quiet intimacy; with her, it had felt like they would live forever, not like they could grow old together. And Claire was— well. He could have loved Claire. Given time, she could have been his everything. But she knows what's best for her, and it isn't Matt, so he never got his hopes up. And maybe Karen can get his heart going a little, make his limbs feel warm, but she's too shaken and untethered.

Foggy is solid. Matt feels moored to something when they're together: grounded. They hardly know each other, and yet Matt feels _known_ , like Pinocchio told he's a real boy. Foggy is the only one who sees him for everything he is. Or, at least, an amalgamation of his high points: his hunger for what's right and the blood on his hands and the strength of his body as he moves freely through his world on fire.

Foggy gets him like Elektra and her broken crystal never did.

Not that he can do anything about it, but… it's more than he probably deserves.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm not saying I agree with his methods," comes Foggy's voice from down the hall, startling the papers out of Matt's hands, "I don't. But you've got a point; he's done a lot of good things."

Matt considers going out the window for a split second, but he only has a few moments, and he's been slower since Nobu. The last thing he needs is for Karen and Foggy to walk into the office and catch him dangling halfway over the street below. No, he has to hide. Maybe Foggy wouldn't recognize him on sight, but that's not a chance he's willing to take.

"That's a change of tune from you," comes Karen's voice, and then her key in the lock.

Matt bolts his door and drops to the floor beside it. He evens his breathing and loosens his joints so that the wood won't creak beneath him. Though he never knows quite how things sound to other people, to him, his heartbeat is a freight train.

The front door sends the still office air billowing when it opens. Karen's perfume and Foggy's cologne and the smell of the coffee they just drank (black for Karen, mocha for Foggy) all swirl into the room. Beneath the trappings, their base scents are all mixed up in each other. It makes Matt feel a certain kind of way.

"So!" says Karen as she scatters air with a wide gesture. "This is it. Offices of Murdock, Attorney at Law."

A light noise comes from Foggy. "Hm. It's very..."

"Sad," Karen finishes. Matt isn't sure if her sound after that is a chuckle or a sigh.

"Hey, no! I was going to say 'minimalist'."

"Of course you were."

"Seriously, it's not bad for one partner and an assistant. How does a guy fresh out of law school and doing all this pro-bono work afford to keep this running?"

"Going into debt, I think."

Foggy chuckles at that, and Matt thinks he would too, though it does hit a bit close to home. Despite investing his inheritance from his father and skipping a year back in high school, putting him out of law school early, he's going to be paying for this for years. It's worth it to approach the law on his own terms, though.

Besides, with his schedule, they'd have cut him from any other firm by now.

"Here, let me give you the grand tour," Karen says. Heat gathers between them as she takes Foggy's arm, tucking her own into it to lead him like she would lead Matt toward the kitchenette.

"Kitchen," she says with another indicative gesture. Foggy makes an appreciative sound. "That's Matt's office over there. And my desk, of course. And I don't know what he was planning to do with this space, but I take a nap in here sometimes."

Her inflection says joke, but her heartbeat spikes over the words. Karen doesn't take naps, but she's spent more than one of the past several nights in the spare office. Matt hasn't said anything about it.

"And here's the conference room. That's the tour."

"Very grand."

The wall comes over their sounds as they enter the conference room. Matt smells the chair that Foggy chooses, the oldest one that gives off a whiff of petrichor when it's humid, or if the person in it sweats too much.

"Is this Matt's?" Foggy points at something, and Matt strains to sense what it might be. He hears a gentle plastic rattle: his refreshable Braille display, familiar like a part of his body in the way its pins shudder every time the building creaks.

"Oh, yeah, it's really cool. He hooks it up to his computer and it, uh, puts everything out in Braille. I think he reads twice as fast as I do."

Foggy makes a breathless little sound. "Man. I'm aware of how ignorant this is going to sound, but I don't think I ever thought about how a blind person would use the internet."

"No, I know what you mean. I always find myself staring at him when he's reading. It's so— I know it's just normal for him, but I can't help but think it's cool, y'know?"

Matt suspected. He knows that Karen's head drifts toward him frequently in the office, though for all his senses he couldn't be sure where her eyes were going. Knowing that she stares should irk him, but it's _Karen_. With her, he can't make himself mind.

"Makes you realize how self-centered you are," Foggy says. "I don't know shit about his life experience. Must be hard."

"No, that's not how it is. I mean," Karen ducks her head and puts her hands out, acquiescing, "yes. There's obstacles, and we probably don't know the half of it. But it's- it's just his life. He doesn't want anyone to feel sorry for him."

"I'm not—" Foggy chokes off into a laugh. "Okay, I was. Just digging myself all sorts of holes over here. I'm sure Matt and his Braille decoder thing are both very capable, and I'm going to shut my mouth before I put my foot in it again."

Karen laughs. "Y'know," she says after a moment, "I've never seen him leave it here, before. I wonder if he's missing it." There's a slide of plastic against smooth fabric. Matt's heart jumps when he places it as Karen going for her phone. He snatches his own from his pocket and silences it.

"Sorry, I just better let him know he forgot it. He's— I don't know. He's been weird lately."

"Oh, no, don't apologize."

Tinny rings come from Karen's end of the phone, ten of them before Matt's answering message. It hardly sounds like his voice, recorded and played back two rooms away.

"Hey, Matt? It's Karen. I just wanted to make sure you meant to leave your Braille display here at the office. I can bring it my your place if you need me to." She pauses, too momentary to mean anything, but her voice strains when she continues. "Give me call me back, okay? I'm—" _worried_ , she wants to say, "—here at the office. Bye."

Matt lets his face press to the hardwood, and closes his eyes against a grimace and a squeezing in his chest. Across the office, Karen's heartbeat is light and quick. Foggy's is beginning to pick up, too.

"You think he's okay?" Foggy asks.

There's a sniff, then the rasp of Karen's knuckles under her nose. "He's fine. He- he won't talk to me, lately. There's something going on, and he just—" She breaks off with a sharp exhale. When she speaks again, it's with a tightness that comes not from control, but from a near lack thereof. "Sorry. It's his problem. If he doesn't want to let me in, that's- that's on him. You don't need to listen to all this."

"No, hey, you can tell me whatever you need to. I'm here. If Murdock is making it that hard on you, then— then fuck that guy, right?"

Karen strangles out a laugh that goes scattered between her fingers. "Thanks, Foggy." Her hand drops into her lap, where it shifts, listless. "That's sweet, but it's— It's not Matt. It's— there's just, you know, a lot of stuff right now. I've—" Her mouth forms a smile, but the breath from it is broken, catching the suggestion of a sob tucked into the bottom of her throat. "There's just so much- so much shit—" Her throat spasms, and her hand goes back to her mouth. Her lungs hitch. Traces of hormones hit the air as tears spill down the long planes of her cheeks. "There's nothing we can do about it, Foggy, it's just- it's all so fucked up—"

"Hey, no, no." Foggy's hip checks the corner of the table as he rounds it, not hard enough for anyone but Matt to hear his small hiss in reaction. He drops into the chair beside Karen, and fabric folds a symphony as she lets herself be wrapped in his arms. The back of his jacket crumples between her fingers. His neck goes slick with her tears. Wrapped up in each other, they are the warm center of Matt's world on fire.

"It's gonna be okay," says Foggy into the silk of her hair. "You've done so much, Karen. You've already done so much." Her hand tightens in his jacket. She doesn't say anything, but her face scrunches and her lower lip goes bloodless, bitten too hard.

Foggy pulls away first, even though his heart races like he wants to stay in her arms as long as he can. She lets him go with a long, trailing brush of fingertips over the underside of his sleeve. Tears still pulse down tracks on her cheeks, cool shocks against the overheated smudge of her face.

But Karen never lets herself be seen like this, not for long, so she runs her thumbs beneath her eyes to catch tears welled there. She smiles, fake as anything, then reaches out and puts her hand to Foggy's cheek. It lingers there, barely close enough to brush the tiny hairs on his skin, before falling into her lap.

"Thanks," she breathes.

Matt knows what's going to happen long before Karen does, and maybe even before Foggy. The air between them heats. Foggy drifts towards her, a motion too small to be conscious, and in turn her shoulders open towards him like something blooming. She wants to be close to him, but she doesn't angle her mouth or her hips in his direction, the way does when she's attracted— so she wants close, just not too close.

Foggy wants to be very close. His hands twist into the knees of his pants, steadying himself. He leans in to kiss her.

"Oh—" says Karen, so close that she's breathing the air out of Foggy's mouth.

He freezes.

"No," she says, "Uh—"

"Shit." Foggy jerks back as if slapped. "I thought— you weren't giving me that vibe, were you? I thought you were giving me that vibe. Shit. I'm sorry. Karen—"

She waves her hands too broadly. "No! No, I should have- I mean, it's— wait, Foggy." She grasps his shoulder.

He wants to curl away from her touch, a wave of twitching muscle from his shoulder to his feet, but he stays still. "Sorry," he says again, hardly more than a breath.

Matt's heart thunders off the floorboards beneath him. Endorphins and adrenaline and a hot tinge of shame make a mess of his body; he doesn't know what he's feeling, right now, only that he shouldn't be here.

He—

He wanted them to kiss. He wanted, for a moment like a fist around his heart, for his closest two friends in the world to be together and happy. This could have been the beginning of something so very good if they had kissed.

But he's relieved that they didn't.

"It's Matt, isn't it?" Foggy asks.

Karen's hand flinches off of Foggy's shoulder. Matt has to stifle a noise in his throat.

Foggy raises his hands. "I'm not saying you have to be into someone else not to be into me. I know that's not how it works. I'm just saying, they way you talk about him..."

Karen doesn't say anything, but her hurricane of a heartbeat does. Matt puts a hand to his face. He doesn't want to hear this.

"Do you love him?" Foggy asks, gentle.

Karen swallows, a flutter of muscle and a slide of spit. It's a vulnerable sound.

"I care about him." Her voice comes level, even though her throat trembles.

"Does he care about you?"

"I don't know."

Matt fists his hand into the collar of his shirt. She doesn't _know_.

"It's not—" Karen sighs, shaky, and stands. Matt has always loved the sound of her, long and lithe and pushing air around in loose sheets with the fall of her hair. He wishes he could tell her that, but even as he has the thought, he knows he wouldn't mean it in the way she'd want to hear.

"It doesn't mean anything. It's not a big deal," she says, finally. "There's too much happening right now, with Union Allied and Fisk."

"Yeah, you're right. I'm an asshole." Foggy stands too, chair scraping backwards. "I shouldn't have—" He laughs, hoarse then suddenly aborted. "I shouldn't have."

"You're not an asshole," Karen murmurs.

"But I still shouldn't have."

"How about, just don't in the future."

"Kiss you, or ask you about Murdock?" There's a lightness to his tone— he isn't really asking if he could kiss her again.

Karen must be able to hear that, too; she chuckles, which is generous of her, all things considered. "All of the above."

For an awful moment they don't say anything. The slow shift of their weight from foot to foot tells Matt that they both want to be elsewhere, but they don't move. Just as he's beginning to fear that they'll stay there until he calls Karen back, Foggy says,

"So, are we gonna wait for Murdock, or-?"

"No, no!" Karen bats a hand at him, a little breathless. "There's no reason for you to stick around if you don't want. Got the grand tour, so—"

"Right, yeah!" Foggy hitches his pants up and straightens his tie. "I mean, I've got things..."

"Sure."

"Tons of things. You know how it is."

Karen tucks a wan smile toward her chest and a sheaf of hair behind her ear. "Sure, Foggy."

"Okay. I'll just- let myself out—"

"Oh, yeah, here—" Karen's flats tap past Foggy's shoes (broken-in now, no longer squeaking) and she opens the door for him, pulling it wide so that they don't eclipse into each other's personal space.

Foggy pauses in the doorway. "Karen, if I—" he sighs, then casts his hands out. "I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. If you need to talk to someone, or if you just need to get shitfaced under a table at Josie's, you can let me know anytime, alright? We need never speak of this again."

"Speak of what?" Karen asks, but she's tired, voice thin and shoulders sagging.

Foggy takes his cue. "G'night, Karen. Be safe."

"Night, Foggy." She closes the door behind him.

In the still of the office, she shifts one foot forward so that her legs are crossed, puts a hand on her hip, and leans down into her other hand against her mouth. For a moment, Matt fears she's going to cry again, but she doesn't. She just breathes, maybe trying to get ahold of herself, and then huffs a laugh into her palm. It's an incredulous sound.

"Fuck," she whispers. Then she pulls out her phone.

"Hey, Matt," she says after the beep, with a resignation like she knew he wouldn't answer, "I, uh, I guess you're asleep. I gotta get home, so I'll make sure all the doors are locked here. See you tomorrow. Take— take care of yourself." She hangs up and rests her head in her hand.

"God fucking damn it," she says, almost silent but sharp enough to draw blood.

Matt waits until she's two blocks away before getting up. His muscles unwind hesitantly, like those of a much older man. When he turns to his desk, he can't remember what he was doing. It couldn't have been important. Killing time until it was late enough to suit up, probably. He closes his office door behind him when he goes, and struggles against the reflex to take his refreshable Braille display with him.

Guilt follows him home, like a dog, and trails him that night through the streets.

 **x+x**

"Marci Stahl," Foggy says as he sits down on her desk.

Her immaculate lips remain puckered around the straw of her grande quadruple-shot iced macchiato, and her Venetian Sunset-lacquered nails don't flinch from the iPhone in her hand, but her eyebrows lift ever so slightly into their fullest shape.

He could probably stomach her more easily if she didn't spend her life making him look like a slob.

"Foggy Bear," she says, and no, strike that, nothing could help him stomach her. "I thought you spent your lunch hour protesting the bourgeoisie with the janitors out back. What do you want?"

"Hey, the custodial staff is a very charming group of individuals. They've stolen far fewer paper-clips than the best of us."

Marci puts her drink down. "Get to the point."

"C'mon, Marce, everyone likes their bush beat around a _little_ bit."

"If that's an innuendo, it's disgusting. For that, I refuse to sleep with you."

Rolling his eyes, Foggy rests his hand on the desk and leans into it. "Oh no, whatever shall I do." He sighs. "I need to commiserate."

"No, you need to complain."

"Fine. I need to confess."

Her brows achieve their most severe arch. "Oh? True love? Murder?"

"I'm an asshole."

She scoffs. "Is that all? You're a lawyer."

Foggy shakes his head and stands up off the desk. "I tried to kiss a girl last night—"

Marci cuts him off with a gratuitous snort. "Tried? What, your parents catch you?"

"—while she was crying."

That actually gets a laugh out of her, a wild gritty thing that she normally keeps on a short leash. "Holy shit, Foggy. That's sad."

"She was so nice about it, too. It was terrible." He sits heavily in one of the chairs in front of the desk. "I'd feel better if she just— slapped me, you know? Then maybe I wouldn't have immediately started saying we should stay friends—"

"Oh, my _God_."

"I just wanted her to know there was no pressure! It seems like she doesn't have anyone looking out for her, and I wanted to be there for her, like moral support, you know. But she's beautiful, and she, just, tenderly touched my face, and- God, it was so stupid."

"That sounds like a train wreck. And that's generous, because trains have to actually go somewhere before they crash and burn." Her voice is light, but her eyes are intense on him and her mouth is severe, an expression that he's come to read as _I can't believe I have to look at someone this idiotic with my own two eyes_.

"I can't believe I have to look at someone this idiotic with my own two eyes," she says, always one for clarity.

Shaking his head, Foggy slumps in the chair. "Why do I tell you these things?"

"Because you love it when people feel sorry for you."

"Oh, thank you. Thanks for that." He puts a hand to his temple. "I mean, I wasn't— she's really sweet, but I'm not in love with her or anything."

"Okay," Marci says, like she's ever agreed with him on anything.

Foggy raises his eyebrows. "Okay?"

She shrugs, eyes on her phone. "You always say that when you're rebounding."

"I never rebound," he scoffs. "I just keep my expectations low and my options open."

She looks up from the phone, not at Foggy, but into the middle distance, eyes searching like she might find help there. "Oh, my god. That's incredibly depressing. Please stop talking."

Groaning lowly, Foggy pushes up out of the chair and returns to the desk. He sits back down on it, and hates himself fiercely for his masochistic desire to tell her everything. "You… might have a point. Maybe," he grinds out. "I'm not saying it'll ever amount to anything, but. There… might be someone. A guy."

"Oh, really?" she deadpans. "Tell me about him."

"Well, it's kind of—"

"Sarcasm, Foggy." She puts up a hand, nails like parapets between them. "I really don't care."

"Wow. As sensitive as she is kind."

"Hey, I have offered, frequently and recently, to be _very_ kind to you. You can't blame me that you're no fun anymore."

"We work together."

"Jesus, like half the people here aren't screwing." She pats him on the shoulder, nails skimming his cheeks just enough to bring the fear of God with them. "Oh, well. Next look you'll get up this skirt is when I'm climbing the ladder right over you, so." She smiles, saccharine.

"Are we being openly aggressive, now? I missed that."

"The _interns_ can tell your head isn't in it, Foggy. It's only a matter of time before it comes out that you're a big philanthropist and you get footed all the low-stakes shit work while your big clients go to more…" she hums, glancing off, "…dedicated partners."

What really damns him is that he doesn't much care that she's right.

"Are we done?" she asks, with an instructional flick of her eyes to the door.

Foggy gets up and backs away, hands raised. "I just thought you might enjoy basking in my agony. We have that special connection."

"Your story gave me chlamydia. Never tell me anything that pathetic again."

"A pleasure as always, Marci," Foggy calls as he closes the office door after him.

Though Foggy is unsure exactly what he meant to achieve by going to Marci, he at least expected to feel better when he left— maybe some kind of Pavlovian response from the days when he used to mourn breakups in her bed. It was a temptation, if only fleeting, to invite her to his place after work, but he knows it would just make things worse.

He hates himself right now, is the thing.

Ever since Karen called to tell him that Elena Cadrenas was stabbed to death, he's felt like absolute shit. He knows, peripherally, that it's selfish of him to use her passing as confetti for his pity party, but he can't escape his very real connection to the circumstances surrounding her death. He tries to tell himself that this would have happened no matter who was representing Tully. Simultaneously, he keeps thinking: what if he had stuck his neck out for her? What if he had worked with Karen to find some angle Murdock could take to court? What if he had flubbed the proceedings on purpose? So what if it would have been career suicide, and likely gotten him disbarred— a woman wouldn't be _dead_.

"No," he groans as he flops down at his own desk, head in his hands. He can't keep thinking like this. It's fanciful, anyway. If he had done any of that, he would have been cut from L & Z in an instant, and his clients would have gone to much less tender hearts. He'd be out a job and none of it would have helped Elena, especially not after Fisk swooped in and got his hands on everything.

Fisk. The name makes him want to look over his shoulder. It makes him think of the man in the mask, with his hands stained all red. Foggy hasn't seen him since then. He's probably alive, but—

Foggy realizes he's gripping the side of his desk to the point of nail-marks. He lets go, hissing through his teeth. He longs for the days when his greatest stressors were paperwork and professional competition, instead of kingpins and vigilantes. If things keep going the way they are, that heart attack he's planning to die of will come a lot sooner than later. He needs to get his mind back on work.

Like looking through glass, he stares down at his desk full of responsibilities and can't imagine himself shifting far enough into the real world to tackle any of it. Normally he can power himself into Productive Mode— wouldn't have made it through law school, otherwise— but today it's not happening. He can't sit here, elbow-deep in papers, when he's already up to his eyeballs in self-loathing. A nauseous cycle monopolizes his head: admonish himself for being self-centered, peg _that_ thought as self-centered, try to leave the cycle, admonish himself for letting himself off the hook, lather, rinse, repeat. Marci would ridicule him without mercy if she knew the extent of his mood, and that's another strike against him, that he cares what she thinks. He's never been so unsure of himself, but then, he's never been involved in anything like this before.

He gets up and goes to the men's room, not so much a conscious decision as just letting his legs move. Fully aware of how poorly he's coping but really not caring, he locks himself in a stall and sits on the closed lid of the toilet with his head in his hands.

On top of it all, he keeps having to resist the urge to call Karen. He's taken a lot of solace in her lately, both in playing Nancy Drew and having increasingly frequent drinks after work. She's been weird these past few weeks, though, and thanks to Foggy, that won't be changing anytime soon.

It wasn't— he didn't lie to Marci. His feelings for Karen truly aren't serious, and that's part of what makes him feel like such a supreme specimen of douchebag for trying to kiss her. Of course she's his type. And of course he has a bit of a thing for her. But he's capable of having a bit of a thing for any number of people at a time, and that doesn't mean he has to act on them. It's not like he's tried to kiss the _Mask_ , and the attraction there is much more intense, if significantly weirder. There was no reason to make a move on Karen. The moment overwhelmed him, maybe; seeing her so naked like that, with her nose tinged red and her eyes shining, made him feel like he really knew her. Perhaps he was hoping, too— hoping that she'd kiss him back. Perhaps it was less about loving her, and more about wanting her to love him.

The self-absorption of that thought hits him a half-step late, and he's forced to his feet by a sudden red-hot swell in his chest. "Jesus," he hisses. He jerks the stall door open and goes to the counter, slaps his hands down. It's a small mercy that no one is here to see him, dealing very poorly with his emotions. He hasn't had to search himself in a long time. He doesn't know if he likes what he's finding.

He didn't used to be like this. A lot has happened to him, recently, but that's not an excuse. Surely that's not an excuse. He swallows heavily and runs some cold water to splash in his face. He gets more than he meant to, sending droplets across his suit and down the back of his shirt. Even after he dabs at himself with a fistful of paper towels, his collar is damp. He blinks at his reflection, tie half-loose and hair gel disintegrating, strands of blonde dripping over his brow. He feels like he's aged a year in weeks.

It's then, standing in the men's room staring at the circles under his eyes, that Foggy realizes he'll never do much of anything for anyone if he doesn't get over himself.

He pulls off his jacket, smooths down his shirt, and straightens his tie. He rakes his hair back. He takes a deep breath.

And then he goes to gather as much on Wilson Fisk as he possibly can.

 **x+x**

As soon as it's dark, Foggy locks up his office and goes to wait on the back steps. He has a manila folder under one arm, barely thicker than a pencil but filled with enough stolen information to get him fired on the spot. Even with his tie stuffed halfway into his pants pocket and his collar open, sweat spreads across his back and under his arms. He shifts from the balls of his heels to his toes, too jittery to sit. Not for the first time, he wonders how the Mask always finds him. If it really was ESP, Foggy would send him a line:

 _GOT SOME INFO stop_  
 _COME AND GET IT BEFORE I CHICKEN OUT stop_  
 _SERIOUSLY THIS IS THE MOST RECKLESS THING I'VE EVER DONE stop_  
 _AND TRY NOT TO GET STABBED ON THE WAY stop_

In the absence of an actual mode of communication, Foggy resigns himself to waiting. As gun-ho as he's been all afternoon, sneaking around and carding through files and browsing unattended computers, he's now forced to acknowledge that it could be a while before he runs into the Mask again. It's been more than a week since their last encounter. Judging by the bloody state he'd been in at the time, Foggy guesses the Mask has a lot on his plate. Probably too much to stop in and check on Foggy's stubborn ass, anyway. After all, the Mask had been after Foggy's cooperation, and Foggy was clear he wouldn't give it. The Mask had to take the hint eventually, and surely he's got more helpful fish to fry. His dramatic exit from the fire escape could very well have been his last farewell.

That should be a good thing.

Instead, it makes Foggy's chest heavy.

He makes himself take a seat on the stairs. In an effort to pass the time, he opens the Tetris app on his phone and tries to let his mind go numb. He makes it to level eight at about the same time that a shadow separates from the roof and begins to scale down the wall. The Mask lands at a crouch in front of him.

This time Foggy doesn't startle, but his mouth hangs open a little. Can't win them all. "How did you know I was here?" he asks.

There's a bruise unfolded like a violet on the Mask's lower cheek, but otherwise he looks so much better than he did last time; his posture is strong, his limbs are steady, and there's no blood in sight. "I pass this way a lot," he says. "I don't always stop when I see you, but you looked like you were waiting." He does something with his mouth that Foggy can't quite see in the shadows. "Are you?"

"Yeah— yeah. I've made a decision." He takes a deep breath. "I'm not making any promises. I can't physically take anything, so I have to make copies, and I can't be caught, so I can't get it to you in bulk. But I'm going to try to get you as much information on Fisk as I possibly can."

In any other person, Foggy wouldn't call it a reaction, but the lift of the Mask's chin and his ever-so-slight gasp are enough to let him know he's done the right thing.

"Thank you," the Mask says, with the kind of gravity that crushes people.

Foggy swallows. "Should've done this a long time ago."

"No, you're doing it now. That's what's important. Is that what you have?" He gestures to the folder that Foggy thought he'd strategically hidden behind himself.

"Yeah." Foggy holds out the file. The Mask steps forward, then takes it with a fleeting hesitation, like he doesn't know exactly how to work his hand. Immediately he opens it and puts his hand to the papers inside. He hasn't stepped back. It's the closest they've ever been.

It should probably make Foggy more nervous than it does.

Abruptly the Mask snaps the file shut and offers it back. Foggy feels his face loosening with surprise, but he takes it anyway.

"Not to your liking?"

"No, it's good. It's excellent." The Mask shifts. "You mentioned that you know Karen Page. Are you in contact with her?"

"Yeah. Uh, more or less. Why?"

"I've been keeping an eye on her, making sure she stays safe. You're aware that she's investigating Fisk, too?"

"Yeah, her and another lawyer."

"Good. Take everything you have on Fisk and give it to her, and _only_ her. Not this other lawyer."

"Uh, sure. Yeah. I think he's pretty trustwor—"

"Just Karen. That's very important. If you trust this other lawyer, she can show him the files, but you go through her. I don't want anyone asking questions about me. Understand?"

Foggy holds up his free hand in surrender. "Yeah, yeah. I got it." He drops his hand again and worries at the file. "If Karen's so close to getting Fisk the legal way, what are you doing out here? I hope you're not at it for kicks, now."

Excepting a flinch of his mouth toward his bruised cheek, the Mask doesn't move. "There are a lot of loose ends," he says. "Even if Fisk goes down the right way, the streets are still dirty. Move the rock and the bugs start crawling out."

"Okay, that sounds like a pretty wise fortune cookie you got that from, but won't the police be able to handle the criminal element once all this is out in the open?"

"It's not out in the open yet. Someone has to keep an eye on things."

"Is that really your job?"

"We keep having this discussion, Mr. Nelson."

He hadn't realized how comfortable he'd become with the Mask calling him _Foggy_. He sighs and scratches listlessly at the side of his mouth. "Maybe we'll keep having it until I can understand why you're doing this," he says.

"I've told you—"

"Yeah, you've told me. I know. I just-" He sighs. "Man, be careful, okay? You," and maybe he's showing his hand, here, but he doesn't care, "you sacred me the other night. I wasn't so sure you were still out there, buddy."

Down by his hip, the Mask's left hand begins to fidget. "It wasn't serious. I told you that."

"It was a lot of blood."

"Any blood looks like a lot when you aren't used to seeing it," the Mask says like he's talking to a child, but shit, if it isn't telling.

"You're _used_ to bleeding that much?"

The Mask huffs. "I can take care of myself. I don't know who you think I am, but I'm perfectly capable—"

"Capable, he says," Foggy cuts in, tossing one arm up. "You know who's capable? Fucking Thor, the space god. And he has a whole squad of costumed buffoons backing him up. What do you have?"

"You, mostly," says the Mask, then tightens his mouth like he didn't quite mean to say that.

Foggy tries not to gape. With a swallow, he says, "See, that's the worst-case scenario, because I don't even know that much first aid."

"I can handle what I take on, Foggy. I'm not fighting aliens. They're just people." He smirks, deadly sharp. "And most of them are no match for me."

It's moments like this that Foggy really questions himself and everything he stands for, because that smirk _gets_ to him. He knows, empirically, that the man under the mask is probably attractive, but over these past weeks that impartial observation has tangled up with the way he feels when they enter each other's orbits, like the air is thick with electricity and it'll converge into lightning if they touch.

Not like anything could ever happen between them, but Foggy knows chemistry when he feels it.

"You seem pretty confident. Doesn't the Bible say something about pride before the fall?" Foggy asks finally. It comes heavier than he meant it to.

The Mask's smirk evens out. "I'm not much of a literalist."

"I think that one's pretty clear, buddy."

"Nothing you can say will convince me to stop," the Mask says, apparently done dancing around it. "I appreciate it. I do. But I have to keep doing this."

With the file under one arm, Foggy sighs and pockets his other hand. He nods at the ground. "A guy can hope," he mutters.

"Don't waste that on me."

A laugh puffs out of Foggy. He looks back up. "It's just gonna be so hard to watch them drag you down for this, if they catch you."

"Foggy," says the Mask, with a warm emphasis that makes Foggy want to look away again. The space between them shrinks as the Mask draws forward— not too close, but certainly nearer than a social distance. "You don't have a lot of faith in me, do you?"

"I've heard it's kinda bad to worship the devil."

The Mask scoffs, but amicably.

"What?" Foggy says. "These are the jokes. I thought you kept coming around for my rapier wit."

"Maybe," says the Mask, tone light. His hand has stopped fidgeting. "How soon can you get this file to Karen?"

"Tomorrow."

"You're close with her?"

The wide, wet flare of Karen's eyes clips through Foggy's mind, that startled moment she realized he was trying to kiss her. "Not really," he says.

Cocking his head, the Mask rolls his shoulders. One of them pops. "I can tell when you're lying."

"Whoa, whoa, I do not appreciate you trying to intimidate me," Foggy says, because he's actually fairly intimidated by that. "I know you're just a big softie. Can't pull the wool over these eyes, friend."

That smirk returns. When the hell did the Mask get cocky? "Get it to her as soon as you can," he says.

"Hey, I'll do my part as long as you do yours."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, don't get yourself arrested. Or stabbed." Again.

"Scout's honor." The Mask lifts his fingers in the corresponding salute, and Foggy sputters out a laugh.

" _Please_ tell me you were an actual boyscout. Bet you had all the community service patches."

The Mask's smile softens into something less deliberate, more fond. "Thank you for this, Foggy," he says. "You don't know how much it means to Hell's Kitchen."

 _To me_ , he means. Foggy can read between the lines. "Anytime."

The Mask moves a half-step forward, and for a ridiculous moment, Foggy thinks they're going to hug. Instead, the Mask's gloved hand lands on his shoulder. It squeezes at Foggy's trapezius muscle, which has been especially tight lately. Foggy eases into it.

"Thank you," the Devil says again, then leaves Foggy standing by himself in the still of the evening.

It's only once Foggy is alone that he realizes his heart is pounding.

 **x+x**

A week passes. Foggy has just put a third folder into Karen's hands, almost an inch thick, crammed with every bit of information he could get on Fisk. Their fingers brushed as she took it from him, and it wasn't awkward. She even smiled at him.

She thinks they're close.

Foggy feels really good about all of this. Spring in his step? Wind in his hair? Ability to sleep tonight without fear of a criminal overlord sweeping the livelihood of everyone he loves right out from under him? All symptoms of job well-done. He pulls in great lungfuls of the thick July air as he walks home and casts nonabrasive, bordering-on-nice looks at a few passersby before deciding that's still a bit too much for New York.

Foot traffic from the TGIF crowd has died down, but the bars won't close for another few hours; the streets exist in that sweet spot where it's easy to forget that the population of Hell's Kitchen is upward of thirty thousand. Right now it's just Foggy, a few people brushing past him, and maybe the man in the mask somewhere.

Yeah, he's feeling good.

So good, in fact, that when an arm hooks around his upper body from behind and a hand slaps a rag over his mouth, his first thought isn't, _I should have seen this coming_. It's more like, _what the SHIT_.

Adrenaline hits him so hard that the skin between his fingers tingles. He struggles, but his arms are pinned. His attacker pulls him into an alleyway and he has no choice but to stumble with him, fighting the urge to gasp against the rag. Self-defense tips flare up in the back of his mind like so many scrabble tiles, a mixture of dos and don'ts that are entirely meaningless with half his higher brain functions soaked in chemicals.

Behind him, his attacker snarls, "Pansy-ass hippie—" and turns to spit Foggy's hair out of his mouth. That's probably what saves Foggy's bacon. Foggy jerks forward, his attacker turns toward him, and he slams his head backwards into the guy's nose.

His cousin did that to him when she was nine months old. Hurt like a sonufabitch.

"Fuck—!" the cut-off shout nearly deafens Foggy's right ear, but the grip on him loosens, and the rag slips. He gasps for clean air and screams a single, strangled "Help!" as he tries to push out of the hold, but if his arms are spaghetti then his legs are molasses. Uselessness from very food group. The rag slaps back down.

"Shut up," the guy snarls against his ear, hardly louder than the ringing. He's got him again, by the neck this time. No matter how Foggy tries not to breathe, he keeps getting odd whiffs of the rag, a smell so sweet it's sour. Everything is fuzzy. This is probably it. This is how it ends. _Only pissed himself a little_ , his tombstone will read.

Foggy's fighting for his last few seconds of consciousness when he sees the silhouette slam down in the mouth of the alleyway. It comes at them running, a blur of black around a snarling mouth. A kick lands so close to Foggy's head that he thinks it's meant for him, but the attacker takes it with a yelp. The arm and the cloth fall. Oh, and Foggy is falling now. Cool.

He must pass out before he hits the ground, because he wakes with a jolt when his face strikes concrete. Fighting the encroaching blackness, he sees a shuffle of feet, catches sounds like blows landing. His hearing begins to clip in and out, but he hears the Mask yelling when he strikes, sometimes. It's terrifying.

Foggy doesn't know when he loses consciousness, because he hasn't exactly had it at any point in the last few- seconds? Minutes? Time is meaningless. Fuck time, for making him feel like he has to organize this experience. He doesn't even know if he's awake right now. He must be, because he's aware of the brick wall at his back and a hand pressing against his collarbone. He grabs the wrist reflexively. The hand eases up, and Foggy lists to one side. He lets go, lets the hand do what it wants, because apparently it's keeping him up.

His first fully formed thought is, _So, that's what chloroform smells like_.

"—oggy? Foggy, you with me?"

That's the Mask, crouching in front of him.

"What's—" Foggy tries, but his tongue is heavy. He shakes his head. His throat spasms like he's been coughing hard. Oh, hell— he _was_ coughing, just a minute ago, before he lost consciousness that second (third?) time. The Mask sat him up against the wall to help him through a fit that felt like drowning. Not that he knows what drowning feels like, but being dramatic helps him cope.

"You with me?" The Mask's voice is— strange? Scared, maybe, though that doesn't encompass the baseline intensity, or the way his thumb is stroking at Foggy's shoulder.

"M'not anywhere else," Foggy slurs. He isn't sure if that's funny or not. He isn't sure of much, beyond his throbbing head and the rotten-saccharine smell filling his sinuses. Cold bursts of adrenaline push through his limbs like sheets of rain, one after the other. "You, uh—" his voice seizes around a tickle in his throat. He coughs, hard, a few times before he can speak. "Right place, right time, huh?"

The Mask makes an odd sound, strained but with a sliver of humor. "I heard you," he says.

"Oh," says Foggy, faintly. He hadn't thought he yelled loud enough for anyone to hear. Shouldn't look that gift horse in the mouth, he supposes, because waking up with the Mask's hands on him is probably the best-case outcome for this whole scenario. Even if it might indicate stalking.

"I think I'm gonna vomit," he hears himself saying, which he hadn't realized before it came out of his mouth, but hey, what do you know? He's vomiting now. The Mask rakes Foggy's hair out of his face as he heaves. His gloved hand is gentle against Foggy's crown.

When it's over, Foggy manages to push himself to sitting without the Mask's help. He runs the back of his hand over his mouth and is vindicated that his face isn't too messy.

The Mask watches all this, head tilted down in that eerie way of his. "You good?"

Foggy shifts his hands in a helpless attempt to gesture. "No. But, uh, I'd be— way worse if you hadn't showed up. Thanks. Thank you."

A moment passes where the Mask's expression is indeterminate between the bad light and the watery mess of Foggy's eyes. His voice, when he speaks, is tense. "Do you have someplace you can go? They'll send someone else after you when this one doesn't come back."

A new shock of adrenaline surges through Foggy's extremities. "You killed him?"

The Mask breathes out a humorless laugh. "No. How many times do I have to—?" He turns to his side, chin-first, and huffs before turning back. "I'm going to call Mahoney to pick him up, but you need to be long-gone by then. There are too many dirty cops. You need to go somewhere safe, outside your routine. An old friend, a relative you don't visit often. Somewhere they've never seen you go before."

"What?" Foggy shoves himself straighter against the wall, blinking hard, like clearing his eyes will do the same to his understanding. "I don't— who's _they_?"

"Fisk's men. They realized someone was leaking information, and they've been looking. I didn't—" The Mask's mouth twists, a slice of teeth catching the lowlight. "I thought I had tabs on them. I had no idea they'd figured out it was you."

Foggy's heart pounds. He knows he's supposed to be coming down from the terror right about now, but the way the Mask's talking, he feels like he'll never be calm again. "What— what do they want with me?"

"Nothing good," the Mask growls, like Foggy couldn't figure that much out. "Can you think of anywhere to lay low? Out of the city, if you can."

Making a sound closer to a whine than he means it to be, Foggy casts one arm aside in a listless gesture. His hands shake. "I don't know anyone outside Hell's Kitchen, man, let alone outside New York. I mean— college friends, maybe? I don't- I don't have anyone's information, though, I couldn't get there tonight—"

"No," the Mask says heavily. "Look, you—" he grimaces again, and sighs like he's the damn President deciding whether the country should go to war. "I'm going to give you my address. Go to my apartment and lay low. If I'm not there yet, wash up, sleep on the couch. Don't go into the bedroom. I'll know if you do."

Foggy stares. Tries to process that, can't. This would be the strangest thing ever to happen to him, if he hadn't almost been drugged and kidnapped about ten minutes ago.

"Awfully trusting," he says.

"I have no reason not to be. You haven't turned me in."

"I meant me, if I take you up on that."

The Mask laughs in that startled way of his, like he didn't know he could. "You were the one who said all that about socks and NyQuil."

Foggy doesn't know what that means. He doesn't know much, with the drumbeat of exhaustion settling into his temples.

"I'm just a guy," the Mask says after a moment. "I have a day job. A life. I'm not going to hurt you, and if I was, I wouldn't do it in my own home, where I sleep. It's the safest place for you, right now."

The obvious thing to do is argue, but what would Foggy be arguing against, really? This happened on his way home, so they know where he lives. He can't go back to his apartment. If the police aren't trustworthy, there's nowhere else he can turn. And the Mask— well, he's seen enough to know the Mask can handle it, where _handle it_ means _fuck a bitch up_. He can't think of anyone better to have in his corner if he's really being stalked by criminals. The Mask eats criminals for breakfast.

(Not literally, he hopes.) (He'll check the fridge.)

"Fine," he finally sighs, halfway to regretting it already. "Just— what- why do you care? Do- do you invite all the damsels back to your place?"

"They want you alive," the Mask says, with no effort to match Foggy's attempt at levity. "That means they want information. If they ask you a question, like who I am or where to find me, and you don't know the answer, they'll hurt you. They've done it before."

Foggy can't help the startled sound he makes, a blown valve on his internal world of stress.

The Mask holds up a hand in placation. "She's okay. I got there before—" his mouth tightens up. "The point is, I do this to keep good people from getting hurt, not to put them in harm's way." He rests his hand on Foggy's collar, where it was when he first woke up. "You're good people."

"Very moving," Foggy says, because the part of his brain that can process sentiment like that is currently soggy with chloroform. "'M convinced. Sleepover at your place."

A few minutes pass as Foggy struggles to stand and get his bearings. The Mask helps him up and watches him walk several continuous, unassisted feet before he gives him the address. Once Foggy has repeated the address back to the Mask's satisfaction, he's sent stumbling out of the alleyway with instructions to use three different cabs to go to two random locations before stopping at the apartment. Halfway to the corner, Foggy thinks he hears his would-be kidnapper come to and go right back out again, a groan followed by a crack of knuckle on bone.

He throws up again.

The cab rides are dreamlike. Two out of the three cabbies ask him if he's alright, and he tries to give reassuring responses even though he's disassociating halfway out of his skull. He keeps looking down at his hands and thinking things like, "huh" and "golly," when he realizes that they're his, and he's inside of a body right now. At least, it was a body at some point. Right now, it's a collection of quivering muscles that would drip adrenaline if someone wrung it out.

Finally, after what feels like hours of riding back and forth and a fair that seriously hurts his wallet, he gets out of the last cab and looks up at the building where the Devil of Hell's Kitchen lives.

It's nothing special.

Protest flares up in Foggy's thighs as he climbs the few steps to the door; his limbs feel like cracked glowsticks, disjointed and bright with tingling. He wavers on the doorstep for a moment, trying to gather himself. He wipes at his nose. It keeps running. He doesn't remember if was doing that earlier today.

He presses the buzzer for 6A. That's the Mask. If he's not back yet, Foggy's supposed to try 2B, who supposedly will let anybody in as long as they say they've lost their key.

But the Mask answers. "It's open."

The door buzzes, and Foggy slips inside.

On his way in, he can't help but think, _What a way to invite a guy back to your place_. He knows it's not like that, but it's easier to fixate on the absurdity of the situation than to address the truth.

Is the Mask a good guy? Probably. Will the Mask hurt him? Probably not. Does that make going back to his lair a good idea? No fucking way.

6A is on the corner. The floor creaks and the walls have seen better days, more due to the inevitable aging of the building than to a lack of upkeep, Foggy thinks. The bulb above his head flickers. He still doesn't know whether he's going to knock on the door.

It opens anyway.

Foggy is a big believer in 'stranger things have happened.' Has to be, to keep his cool when a guy in a t-shirt, sweats, and a mask answers the door. Not that he expected to see the Devil's face, but he also didn't expect to feel like he's about to enter a softcore BDSM dungeon.

"You really do wear that thing all the time," Foggy says.

The Mask steps aside and sweeps a hand toward the interior of the apartment. "Before someone sees you."

He's going to regret this.

"I'm going to regret this," he says as he crosses the threshold. The Mask locks the door behind them.

It's dark. The only light comes from window-adjacent streetlamps, and some kind of glow at the end of the hallway that isn't from an overhead fixture. Foggy stands there by the door for a long moment, even after the Mask brushes past him. He's is smaller than Foggy thought. Sans the heavy boots, his body tapers without emphasis into bare feet, padding across the wood instead of stomping the concrete like Foggy's used to seeing. He knew the guy had feet— obviously, he's watched lots of people take one to the face— but it's strange to actually see them, vulnerable toes and sharp ankles. He seems shorter, too, though Foggy isn't sure if that's a lack of boots or of bravado.

"Couch is in here," the Mask says from the end of the hallway.

Foggy clears his throat. "Sure. Yeah, yeah." He follows the Mask into the living room, but stops in the arch of the hall.

The light from the windows is not so much a glow as a glare, cutting purple through the glass in kaleidescope dapples. Everything is cast in relief, the sparse furniture and the broken door leaning against a doorway on the far wall and the Mask standing in the middle of it. Abruptly the light shifts, white now— it's like looking at the bottom of a clear lake in the summer, seeing the sunlight through the water and getting little glints in his eye.

Foggy squints. "What is this, Blade Runner?"

He thinks the look the Mask gives him is a smile. "Never saw that one." Foggy tsks at that, but his host continues, "You wouldn't be joking if you'd seen the discount I got on this place."

"Au contraire, my masked friend, I'd be joking no matter what. Comedy is my one defense in the face of- of trauma," he says, even as he makes his wavery way to sit on the couch. All the breath leaves him when he collapses down. He's not going to think about how the shadow underneath his left leg really looks like a bloodstain.

"Here."

Foggy jumps— the Mask doesn't make any noise when he moves. He leans over the back of the couch, offering a half-full glass of water. Foggy takes it, careful not to brush fingers.

"Don't drink it too fast," the Mask says. "You'll throw up again."

"Thanks." Foggy takes a sip and has to take the advice to heart— suddenly he thinks he could guzzle half an ocean, given the chance. He settles for another slow sip, closing his eyes as the cool neutralizes his scratchy throat. The sensation turns suddenly to coughing, not badly like before, but enough to put a fist to his chest. The Mask begins to round the couch, but Foggy waves him away.

"I'm fine," he scrapes out, so the Mask doesn't come any closer. Foggy takes another drink of water, and ends up letting several slow minutes pass that way, occasional sips punctuated by clearing his throat.

Finally, after Foggy's gotten the taste of vomit out of his mouth, he glances back at the Mask. "This dystopian warehouse of yours have some actual lights? Not that I don't, uh, really love sitting in the dark."

The Mask crosses his arms, mouth a grimace. A moment passes before he opens it to speak, but Foggy cuts him off with a grumble.

"Right, gotta keep your mystique. I gotcha, buddy."

"You should get some rest, anyway." It's soft, softer than the Mask has ever sounded.

Foggy shifts. He sets the glass on the ground, straightens up, then bends to pick the glass up again.

"You're exhausted," the Mask says, not as soft, but not unkind. "I know the last thing you want to do right now is sleep, but you're safe here. There's nothing you can do at this point but rest. You'll feel better in the morning."

With a small chuckle, Foggy leans into the couch, head tipped over the back. He faces the Mask, and the Mask faces him, but at an angle that makes him feel like they aren't really looking at each other. Foggy means to say something about how he doesn't think sleep is a realistic goal at the moment because he's trying to shirk the reality of his barely averted kidnap and torture, but instead he asks,

"Seriously, how the hell do you see through that thing?"

The Mask's shoulders stiffen.

"No, hey, it's not a bad look." Foggy reaches out, and only just avoids touching the Mask's arm before he thinks better of it. "It's better than those guys who think they can put on a blindfold with holes in the eyes and nobody'll recognize them, at least." He laughs, a sandpapery noise. "You know, _Captain America_ does that. Why does Captain America do that? His face is in every history book. We know what he looks like without it."

"Does he wear a mask? I never noticed."

"Well— it's not really a mask. I think it's part of his helmet. It's dumb, is my point. But you? You've got it down, man. Functional and fashionable, for the practical vigilante. Very Dread Pirate Roberts."

A breath of a laugh startles out of the Mask.

Foggy sits upright. "Please tell me you've seen Princess Bride."

There, now that's a real grin. "I've seen Princess Bride," the Mask says, his lips curved and easy. He's got a nice smile. Foggy lets himself enjoy it, because if you can't be a hedonist after a night like this, when can you?

"Good. Y'know, for a minute there, I was afraid you were one of those people who thinks they're better than everyone else because they don't veg out in front of the Food Channel every once in a while. I hate those people. They especially like to tell you if they don't have a TV—" which is precisely when Foggy realizes that the Mask doesn't have a TV, either. "Not- not that there's anything wrong with that."

The Mask laughs again, but distinctly _at_ Foggy this time. "I don't have a lot of time for vegging out."

"I guess I can see that." Foggy fiddles with his fingers in his lap. He considers letting the moment lapse into silence for about three seconds, then decides he'd rather embarrass himself by rambling than be alone with his thoughts right now, and says, "Guy like you, not a lot of time for hobbies, huh?"

Briefly the Mask considers him, then he makes a contemplative sound and sits down at the table behind the couch. "You've seen my hobby."

"Is that what you call it?"

The Mask shrugs. Foggy turns on the couch to face him properly. In the apocalyptic light, the Mask's bare arms are sharp with muscle, veiny and ending in raw-knuckled hands. A triangle of shadow falls over most of his mouth from this angle, leaving just a corner. Foggy can imagine the rest just fine.

"So, got a lot of girls coming over here?"

It's supposed to make him laugh, but instead his mouth pinches. "No."

"Guys?" Foggy asks, not necessarily for his own benefit, just because he'd feel pretty vindicated if the Devil of Hell's Kitchen was gay.

"No," the Mask says again. "Not for lack of interest in either," he adds, and isn't _that_ an interesting development. "I don't have many opportunities to meet people."

"Really? What, all the mystery and allure doesn't have them falling on your doorstep? This alone," Foggy gesticulates at the Mask's physique, "should do it."

That gets the desired reaction: the Mask loosens up. The side of his mouth curves toward a smile, and he shifts his weight, not like he's gearing up to flee but like he's a real, actual person settling into his own skin.

"Usually, I try to keep people at arm's length," he says, soft, like a confession.

It makes Foggy's chest a little tight. "I'm beginning to get that impression. You—" he pauses, unsure, but goes on anyway: "You're not asking for anything back, are you?"

Through the fabric, the Mask's brow raises visibly. "What?"

"You just— you go out and you break yourself every night, then you come back to this depressing place and sleep alone? Not a lot of guys would do that of their own volition, much less to be scorned by the public like you have."

"I'm doing it for the city—"

"Yeah, because it's the right thing to do. You've said."

"I have to."

"No one's making you."

The Mask sighs out a sort of chuckle, fed-up, more than anything. "No one can stop me."

"So it's all about what you want?"

The easy line of the Mask's shoulders tightens, and for a moment Foggy thinks he's judged this all wrong and he's about to get hit— but instead the Mask stands, and expels a heavy breath.

"You should really wash up."

Foggy turns to follow the Mask's progression as he rounds the couch, a silhouette in front of the windows, heading for the bedroom.

"Hey— I'm sorry, buddy, I didn't mean—"

The Mask stops and puts up a hand, resting the other on his hip. He seems to be looking at the floor by Foggy's feet. "Don't- don't push your luck."

It isn't a real threat. Foggy hopes, at least. He keeps another reflexive apology to himself as he watches the Mask retreat, and wishes he knew which words might level the ground between them, or if words can even do that as long as one of them is faceless.

The Mask vanishes into the bedroom, then returns shortly with a set of clothes draped over his arm. He tosses them onto the couch next to Foggy.

"These should fit. Bathroom's down the hall. Extra towels are under the sink. Take your time if you need it, but try not to move anything around."

"Oh. Yeah, okay. Thanks." Foggy doesn't know what he expects, but he waits on the couch for a moment, thinking the Mask might do or say something else. When the Mask remains, arms hanging, head tilted, Foggy takes his cue. His legs tremble beneath him, but he manages to make it to his feet, clothes in hand, without incident.

On his way down the hall, he realizes what makes the apartment so desolate: nothing on the walls. No art, no photos, no kitschy blocks of wood with typography printed on them, mass-produced by Target. Nothing. Foggy isn't Martha Stewart or anything, but even he has a couple of family snapshots hanging around and a tasteful throw rug here and there. No such niceties for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Maybe he's some kind of denier of worldly pleasures, refusing to give himself creature comforts like home furnishings. Or maybe his life is exactly as sad and lonely as Foggy's beginning to think it is.

He catches himself feeling bad for the guy.

Once he reaches the bathroom, he understands why his instructions were not to move anything. It's a utilitarian set-up, very everything-in-its-place. After making sure the door locks, less because he doesn't trust the Mask and more because that's apparently the kind of thing a person starts doing after a kidnap attempt, he undresses. The pipes make a momentary racket when he starts the taps, like an engine stalling, before he finally gets some water. Pressure's better than he thought it would be, better than at his place, even. He sighs when the water hits his back.

When the Mask told him to take as long as he needed, Foggy's clouded mind sputtered over the possible innuendo of it before writing it off as a strangely worded courtesy.

Now he realizes what the Mask meant, as the steam rises into his face, and the solitude closes around him, and the tremor in his limbs shakes up into his esophagus, all converging into a sudden sob. His hand claps to his mouth. His chest hitches, several quick successions, and he finds himself leaning into his hand against the tile wall like it's the only thing in the world left standing. He weeps. He feels his face twist, mouth arched open, eyes pinched shut. It's an ugly cry, but he can't stop. He's not— he's never been a crier. Not that he thinks he's above it, or too macho, he's just led a fairly comfortable life and it doesn't come up a lot. And maybe, maybe he's a bit of an avoider, the sort of person who sees a bad emotion coming from a mile away and starts throwing jokes to chase it off. God knows he still hasn't processed the night that almost saw him shot twice.

He pays for his emotional escapism, pays for it in spades, with his forehead pressed against the tile and his hair sticking vinelike to the corners of his mouth and sobs pulled straight up from his belly. His throat goes raw with the effort of staying silent. He draws deep, hard breaths, seeking stability but losing it every time he exhales and the shake of it sets him off again. Finally he resigns himself to sniveling while he soaps himself down. He scrubs until his grubby elbows are red, realizing only now that the heels of his hands are raw from taking his fall before. He's a mess, a fucking mess like a child that fell down on a playground.

Except he's not a child, and it wasn't just a fall.

Finally he achieves those long, ragged kind of breaths that let him know he's done, that he's got no more left in him. He closes his eyes tight and lets the water hit his face. For the past few minutes the stream has gone steadily colder, but the chill is good. It makes the flayed nerve of him numb. When it's too cold to stand, he shuts the tap off. He lingers in the shower, dripping, until he can bear the thought of going out and acting like he didn't just lose every once of his cool.

He laughs hoarsely when he gets a towel around himself, because who would have guessed a guy with no personal affects in his house would spring for the world's softest linens? Foggy has never taken his time to consider the thread count for towels, but he guesses it's astronomical for these. The clothes are comfortable, too, if a little more form-fitting than he prefers. Maybe the Mask needs soft things in his life because he spends it covered in bruises. Maybe Foggy will ask.

After rinsing his mouth thoroughly and gargling a few times, Foggy deems himself fit for consumption. He exits the bathroom in a billow of built-up steam, then pauses at the end of the hallway when he smells something cooking. A thin laugh settles in his throat. It's breakfast food. Of course The Mask is cooking breakfast. The way this night is going, it was that or they settle down to sync up Dark Side of the Moon and Wizard of Oz.

"Surreal," Foggy mutters, shaking his head. He wanders into the pink-bathed living room, leaving his old clothes on the couch and his shoes on the floor, then stands for a moment to take in the spectacle that is the local vigilante scrambling eggs. Muscles shift like tectonic plates beneath the Mask's t-shirt as he wields the spatula. His head tilts in that scarecrow way of his, ear-first, toward the stove, like he's deciding by sound alone whether the food is ready. Bacon sizzles in another pan.

"You should try to eat," the Mask says without turning.

Foggy, to his credit, only jumps a little. "I mean, uh," he clears his throat, "not that it doesn't smell great, but I don't know if I'm up to the challenge." He approaches the kitchen and leans his folded arms on the bar. "Maybe some toast, if you have it?"

"Sure." The Mask rests the spatula gingerly on the side of the pan, then reaches into a cabinet above his head and pulls out a loaf of bread. Without turning, he tosses it over his shoulder onto the bar next to Foggy. "Toaster's in the cabinet to the left of the sink."

Resisting the urge to call him a show-off, Foggy takes the bread and rounds the bar. The kitchen isn't tiny, but neither is Foggy; despite his best efforts, his ass brushes the Mask's hip when he bends to look for the toaster. He feels himself go warm, but the Mask doesn't say anything. Resolving not to face him, Foggy sets the toaster on the counter and plugs it in.

"All right," the Mask says after a moment, when the popping oil and smell of bacony goodness has reached a crescendo, "here's this. It's turkey bacon." He sets a plate next to Foggy on the counter, then pushes a few strips onto it. "Should be easier on your stomach."

"Ah, so this is your angle," Foggy says. The Mask's brow raises. Foggy clarifies, "You're playing the long con. You earned my trust, invited me into your home, only to poison me with health food."

With a smile, the Mask scrapes the rest of the bacon onto another plate. "You'll survive." He turns back to the stove. "Really, Foggy. You're taking this pretty hard. You'll feel better if you eat."

Foggy's lungs pull suddenly tight, and his throat wavers as he realizes what that the Mask is really saying: he heard him. He fucking heard Foggy crying, and he's merciful enough not to say anything direct about it, but he's still trying to help him get a grip. Foggy doesn't think he could cry again even if he wanted to, but it's starting to feel like a possibility. He wipes a hand over his mouth.

"Seriously, you didn't have to do this," he says. "I'm probably keeping you up."

The Mask shrugs. "I don't sleep a lot. Normally I'm doing… other things, about this time."

"Hey, don't let me cramp your style. If you got some bad guy's shoe laces to tie together—"

"I didn't want to leave you here by yourself."

"Aw, he cares."

"Maybe I don't trust you," the Mask says, too fondly to convince.

"So you made breakfast?"

"Nothing else to do. Idle hands, all that."

"Seems like the Devil's playground would be your kind of thing."

Chuckling, the Mask pushes eggs onto Foggy's plate. Their elbows brush. "Walked into that one, didn't I?"

"Don't beat yourself up. I'm crafty."

The toast pops a whole several inches out of the toaster, and the Mask's hand shoots past Foggy to catch both pieces. He tosses them onto Foggy's plate, smirking.

"Okay," Foggy chuckles, "at this point, it's showing off."

"Eat your breakfast." The Mask fills his own plate and drops the pans in the sink with a single fluid motion. He takes his food around to the table.

Foggy finds himself rooted to the spot, fascinated by the way the Mask moves: never more than he needs to, but with just enough power that it's impossible to forget those hands can kill, even if they choose not to. He sits at the table with his back to Foggy. The way the shadows play, he can almost forget that there's a mask between them.

Wouldn't that be nice.

Belatedly, Foggy takes his own plate and drops into the chair closest to the window, back to the billboard. At this angle, the Mask is lit fully, if in shades of blue. The somber bow of his lips strikes Foggy suddenly as familiar, though just in a fleeting sense, probably from some half-formed memory of the night they first met, back when he couldn't recognize him just by his mouth. He thinks he could, now.

"Do you say grace or anything?" Foggy asks.

The Mask shakes his head. He doesn't smile, but Foggy thinks the loose shape of his mouth is fond. "I don't pray a lot outside of penance, these days."

Jeez, if that isn't a sad image. "Whatever works for you," Foggy says, lightly, and scoots his chair forward to settle in. His knee falls against the Mask's leg. Neither of them moves.

Foggy goes for the toast first, to ease himself into the idea of eating, but soon he has to admit that the Mask was right. The food does him good. He feels like he's fully inhabiting his body for the first time in hours, becoming warm and heavy and all the things he's supposed to be. Though he knows he won't be able to clear his pate, he makes reasonable progress. The quiet is comfortable. The Mask eats more quickly than Foggy, but without urgency. He handles the utensils like he might break them, taking care not to let them scrape or clatter on the corelle-ware. At some point, the full faces of their legs start to press together under the table. It's nice. Safe.

It's what gives Foggy the courage to say, "Listen. I've had some real faux pas in this area recently, so I gotta ask. Have we been flirting this whole time?"

The Mask stills. He doesn't look at Foggy, but he doesn't move his leg, either. "If that's what you want it to be," he says.

Foggy bites his lips inside his mouth, then sighs. "See, it seems pretty low-stakes on my end. Anonymous man, anonymous flirting. You're the only one in this room who actually knows who you are, so I guess you get to decide."

An upward curve takes the Mask's mouth, too sad to be called a smile. "You like it that way? Anonymous?"

"Wh— no, not really. I just mean, it can't go any further than this, so no risks. Unless you're—" Foggy swallows. "Unless you're interested."

A swipe of tongue across the Mask's mouth leaves his lips gleaming red in a sudden change of light. It's that sight, otherworldly yet familiar, that causes the amorphous feelings throughout Foggy to crystallize white-hot like a meteor at the center of his chest.

" _Are_ you interested?" he asks, with only a bit of hope. It would hurt, but he's ready to start making jokes, if he's pegged this wrong.

For a moment, the Mask looks at him, or maybe at the billboard behind him.

"I can't," he says finally, soft and shot-through. He leans forward, and so does Foggy, drawn without thinking. "You," the Mask says, quiet, "you mean so much to me. I never meant to drag you into all of this. I can't— I can't pull you any deeper."

"That's not an answer to the question."

"Yeah," the Mask says, heavy, with that sad twist to his mouth, "it is." Then he reaches out, slowly so that Foggy knows what he's doing before it happens, and clasps their hands together. The heel of his hand is callused. His nails are blunt, a few of them spit through with little cracks. Ridiculously, Foggy wants to lift the chafed knuckles to his mouth and kiss them.

The room goes blue again, and time languishes.

Finally, with a long, hard squeeze, the Mask pulls his hand away. Foggy's leg goes cold when the Mask pushes his chair back. He picks up their plates and takes them into the kitchen, then comes back around to stand by the table.

"You should get some sleep, now," he says, soft.

Foggy nods. His hand curls in and his fingers brush each other, seeking supplement for the missing touch. "Sure. Thanks—" his voice fails. He looks away. "Thanks for everything."

The light from the billboard gentles. Foggy turns to face the Mask again and finds him with his shoulders rounded and his hands loose, head tilted slightly upward. It feels like they're looking each other in the eye for the first time.

Then the room falls into darkness. Against the distant street lamps, Foggy can barely see the Mask walking away. He becomes visible again, just his shoulder, when he pushes back the door to the bedroom and low light shines from within. He pauses in the doorway, but doesn't turn.

"Foggy?"

"Yeah?"

"Sleep tight. I'll probably kill you tomorrow."

For half a second Foggy tenses, then he sighs it all away with a shaky chuckle as he places the words. "That's not even the line, man."

The Mask still doesn't face him, but Foggy sees a smile just over the edge of his shoulder. "Good night, Foggy." He pulls the door shut behind him.

Foggy stares down at his hands, white skin and purple shadows.

"Good night," he breathes, too quiet to be heard.

 **x+x**

Foggy sleeps poorly and in fits. A few times it's the billboard that gets him, and once it's a dream he can't remember, but more often than not he just wakes up staring at the ceiling and doesn't know why. Around 4 AM— by his best estimation, because there are no clocks in the apartment- he feels like he's going to throw up again and stumbles to the bathroom. He spends fifteen fruitless minutes sitting on the side of the tub over the toilet before deciding that nothing's going to happen. He drags himself back to the couch.

Given his terrible night, he's surprised to open his eyes to gentle daylight a few hours later and find that he slept through the Mask leaving. He knows this because there's a note left on his stomach. Stiff and sour-mouthed, he sits up, and barely manages to catch the scrap of paper before it slides off of him. Between his sleep-sticky eyes and the headache already building right behind them, it takes him a moment to decipher the note.

 _Leave the city as soon as possible_ , it reads, with an underline indenting the paper beneath the last three words. _Call when you're safe or if you need anything._ Then there's a phone number. Some quality of the writing strikes Foggy as odd; he wouldn't call it messy, but clumsy, perhaps. Maybe using your hands as blunt objects on a nightly basis makes them less effective for everyday tasks.

"Maniac," Foggy mutters, and gets up. He peers around as he stretches. The apartment is so much softer now, less like a vigilante's lair and more like an actual place where someone lives. Foggy's inner child really wants to push back the bedroom door and see whatever it is that he's not supposed to, but he doesn't. He owes the Mask that, at the very least.

At the most, he owes his life.

Sighing, he picks up his phone and is thankful to find it at half-charge. Before going to sleep last night, he sent several college friends Facebook messages asking if any of them could put him up for a while. He's pleased to find a few offers. (See, mom? Playing the social circuit in college was _not_ a waste.) He replies to the one that seems least reluctant— Neha, he always liked her— that he'll be there before dinner, then sets about making a quick exit.

Though he feels uncomfortable in the tight shirt the Mask lent him, he gets a whiff of chloroform when he picks up his own shirt from last night, and decides to take the lesser of two evils. The soft sweatpants, however, he leaves folded outside the bedroom door. His own trousers are a mess, but he doesn't want to take too much.

He's just trying to figure out if he should risk a trip to his apartment for the things he'll need for his trip— toiletries, clothes, probably a charger, and fuck, did he leave his briefcase in the alley last night or is it at the office?— when a loud buzz jerks his head towards the kitchen. He jogs over to investigate, and finds a block of a flip-phone vibrating on the counter. Almost immediately, his crime-drama-watching ass identifies it as a burner. The tiny front screen displays a number with no assigned contact. He frowns at it.

He shouldn't answer. Of course, he also shouldn't have tried to make a move on the local vigilante last night, so what the hell. He's adventurous these days. He flips the phone open.

"Hello?"

 **x+x**

It's inevitable, now, that Foggy will find out.

There are myriad ways. Matt keeps thinking of new ones as he walks, hand tightening on his cane and teeth grinding harder with every step. Karen could mention the billboard outside Matt's apartment. Foggy could show up and catch Matt at home unawares. He could use Matt's absence right now to snoop around in his bedroom, stumble across his talking clock and his over-thick law books and his Braille-labeled clothing, and make the connection from that. Hell, they could run into each other at work and Foggy could just _realize_. It's an honest shock that he hasn't figured it out already. Matt can only stand in the shadows so much, and that's to say nothing about his voice, or the dozens of other identifiers he gives off. He's only crossed paths with Foggy as himself that one time, but if it were to happen again, Foggy should be familiar enough with the Devil by now to recognize him regardless of the absence of a mask, or the presence of glasses and a cane. One way or another, Foggy will figure it out.

Too few things in Matt's life have been on his terms. He wants this to be one of them.

Three blocks away from his apartment, he stops and calls his burner and prays that Foggy will answer. He chews his lower lip while it rings.

" _Hello?_ "

Thank God. "Foggy. Are you out of there yet?"

" _Oh, hey? Uh, I was about to be. Everything alright?_ "

"Yeah, it's fine. Everything's good." Matt works his mouth, then draws a sharp breath. "Wait there a few more minutes, will you? I'm on my way back."

He hates being unable to hear a heartbeat through the receiver. Foggy's voice, when he speaks, is overly level: " _You forget something, buddy?_ "

"No. Just- just wait for me." Matt hangs up before he loses his nerve.

 **x+x**

Foggy flips the phone shut and stares at it. He looks around the apartment, like anything might have changed in the last few seconds. For the dozenth time, he suppresses the urge to push back the door and see what's in the bedroom. Instead, he sits down on the couch and worries at his pants. They're still dusty. The left knee is pulpy and raw, halfway to tearing.

He waits.

When he hears a key in the lock, he stands reflexively. He doesn't move. There's a rustle in the entryway, and something clatters against the floor.

He tries not to yield to disappointment when the Mask turns the corner still— well, masked.

"Foggy," he says, sharp but hardly more than a breath, annunciated far more than a two-syllable word should be. It makes Foggy's chest leap. "Please— sit down?"

Foggy sits.

The Mask stands in the entryway, legs splayed like he planned to take another step but forgot what he was doing. His hand jitters at his side, lips slightly parted. The unbuttoned jacket of his suit flares windblown around his hips, allowing a glimpse of skin where his shirt's gone untucked and rucked up. His tie is askew.

Foggy bites his lips, licks them inside his mouth. "Did you run here?"

Mouth flattening, the Mask nods. This is the clearest Foggy's ever seen him, he realizes. Smile lines frame his mouth. The stubble that sharpens his jaw isn't as thick as Foggy thought it was. And he's pale, about as pale as a white guy who stalks the night should be; it makes his lips stand out red.

Foggy can feel his own heart beating. "What's—?"

"It's pointless," the Mask says over him. "This— I do this, the mask, to keep people safe. The people I care about. But you— you could find out if you wanted to. I've brought you to my home."

"I wouldn't," Foggy says, knee-jerk. "I'm not out to expose you, man, I hope you know that by now—"

"I know," the Mask laughs, pitchy and wet. He straightens up at turns his head aside. "I know, and that's— that's why it's pointless. I can't keep you safe anymore. You already have to leave the city because of me, so the least I can do…" He draws a deep breath, squares himself up. It's his fighting stance, but for the first time, Foggy doesn't expect a blow.

The mask comes off.

Foggy shoots to his feet. _Fuck_ , he thinks, and then, _Holy fuck_.

The man is— Foggy tries not to be dramatic. He really does. But the man under the mask is _lovely_. The hard jaw and mouth that snarls so easily both surrender to a gentle face: big, beseeching eyes and brown hair that stands in wisps from a forehead with a fold of concern through the middle. It's almost a dopey look, after everything. The eyes change his whole vibe. He isn't looking at Foggy, instead somewhere to Foggy's left, like he's afraid what Foggy might say, but how could he say anything bad? This guy is- he's—

Familiar.

"Wait, do I—?"

"You know me," he says, resigned. "We only met once. You probably wouldn't remember otherwise, but I think Karen talks about me."

Like a slot machine, everything rings into place: his stature, the way his suit fits him, the red-lensed glasses folded over his breast pocket.

"Wha— you're? You're Matt?"

He swallows, a smooth leap of his Adam's apple. "Guilty."

"But—" Foggy's hands are limp by his sides. He doesn't know when that happened. He gestures didactically, just to feel a modicum of control over the situation. "Matt's blind."

A nod. "Yeah."

"So. You're." Foggy knows what word is supposed to come next, but he can't say it. He draws a deep breath. "You're _blind?_ "

The Mask's mouth- Matt's mouth?— actually quivers. His eyes dart around, and for a moment Foggy thinks, _Gotcha_ , but no— they don't land anywhere, just flick about, lost as the expression on his face. Maybe he's faking it, but—

"I'm blind."

Foggy wants to respond levelly. He wants to sound like he's taking this in stride, and not spinning out. Instead he says,

"How the _fuck?_ "


	4. Chapter 4

"How the _fuck?_ "

Matt lets Foggy have his confusion. He faces him, and he schools his expression, and he tries not to give sound to any of the painful ways his throat tightens. The incredulity hurts like a blow to the solar plexus, but he's pretty used to taking those.

He steels himself before responding. "It's difficult to explain."

Foggy's heartbeat is racket; his face is a bright point of heat. "Well, you- you gotta try, because I want to take you on faith, I really do, but there's- there's _no way_ a guy who can't see can do the stuff I've seen you do. Like. Like, seriously, I don't want to believe you're taking advantage of the disabled by lying about something like this, but how the _fuck_."

Matt sighs deeply, wretchedly. He expected it would be difficult for Foggy to believe him, but expecting and experiencing are two different animals, and he's never actually had this conversation before. Even now, with the truth halfway out there, he hesitates to say what he has to say next. His left hand fidgets, quick and helpless. He wants to stop it. He can't.

"Do you remember when you asked if I have an ability?"

Foggy makes an expression, something subtle that Matt can't quite place, known to him only by the sound of gently crinkling skin. "You wouldn't tell me what it was."

"Well." Matt draws a breath that shakes halfway in.

He had to pull glass out of his own back, once. He contorted into tangles, unable to pinpoint the locations of the shards because everything hurt, and ended up pushing more in than he got out.

This feels like that.

"I have… heightened senses. Super senses. If you prefer." It's supposed to be funny. Foggy doesn't laugh.

"My senses give me spatial awareness. I can hear things like blood moving through a body, people talking from a mile away, that man kissing his girlfriend on the other side of the street—" he pauses as Foggy spins to look out the window, making a sound of surprise as he apparently spots the couple. "I can feel— everything, really. Tiny changes in the airflow or atmospheric pressure, things like breathing, single strands of hair moving. It all comes together to form this… picture, in my mind's eye. Like an impressionistic painting; nothing detailed, but it's. It's enough. Smell helps me fill in the gaps, and taste, too." He takes a breath. "So, yes, I can, in the metaphorical sense of the word, see things. But I am blind."

It's quiet between them. Foggy's face doesn't move enough to betray his expression. Matt puts his left hand, the one that won't stop worrying, into his pocket to finger the pen light he bought at the drugstore on his way here. If Foggy needs proof, he'll let him shine it in his eyes to check his pupils. He doesn't know what exactly this is that's been growing between them, but he isn't willing to let it die under the heel of Foggy's disbelief.

"So, you—" Foggy stops, swallows. Gasps out a laugh, but there are no endorphins, only adrenaline. "That's why— the mask. You don't even see out of it. You _can't_. You can't see."

Matt shifts his weight.

"You can't see anything? At all? You're completely blind? As a bat? That's— am I being insensitive? I can't tell. I mean— are you _sure?_ "

He wasn't expecting to laugh, but there it is, as it always is with Foggy, like he's used his bare hands to pull it out of him. "Am I sure that I'm blind?"

Foggy's voice pitches high. "Yeah?"

"I'm sure. When I was nine, there was an accident, a chemical spill. The chemicals gave me my abilities, but… The last thing I saw was my father's face." As soon as he says it, he feels unanchored, the way he feels as he goes off the edge of a building. He's never told anyone that before.

Foggy's lips part, but he doesn't say anything. In the pause, Matt hears the couple in the next building having that fight about the mother-in-law again. Two floors down, a microwave beeps. Someone giggles shrilly.

"Oh, my God!" Foggy says, sudden, with a palpable widening of his eyes. "I knew your name was familiar when we met! You're the Matt Murdock that was in the paper when we were kids! Man, I thought you were the coolest. I idolized you for months! You saved that old dude's life, when— wow, God, you were just a kid." He wipes his clammy hand over his mouth. "You really don't know when to stop, do you?"

Matt rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "It's who I am."

Though it's already a steady staccato, Foggy's heart flutters. "Yeah, I'm. I'm getting that."

Running his tongue between his lips, Matt draws closer to Foggy. He stops two steps away, and can't ignore the ways that Foggy lists toward him, minuscule but everywhere: the barest slide of his heel, a turn of his pelvis, a breath between his opening lips, his hand drifting centimeters into the space between them. It's how Foggy moved before he tried to kiss Karen, all those weeks ago.

She didn't let him, but Matt—

Matt would.

"Superpowers," Foggy says, faint.

"In a sense."

"In four senses, is what you're telling me."

Matt smiles. "See, now you've got it."

"So, you— when you said you heard me getting attacked, I thought that meant you were following me."

"I was on the other side of Hell's Kitchen."

"No shit?"

"I can hear you from two miles away."

"That's— I'm trying not to stroke your ego, here, because you've definitely been lying to me, but that's amazing. What else can you do? Besides the hand-to-hand combat, which is, what, just mad skills?"

Lips loose and easy, Matt grins with his teeth. "The spatial awareness helps."

"Oh, yeah, be modest. Very heroic of you. Does the spatial awareness help when you fling yourself off of fire escapes, too?"

Matt laughs. "I don't make a habit of that."

"Yeah, once is enough. Seriously, you can see— or- sense? You can sense enough to do stuff like that just by—" Foggy gestures formlessly out to his sides "—by tasting the air or some shit?"

"I can sense everything around me, more than a sighted person could. I know you left the toilet cover up because it changes the airflow in the bathroom, and I can smell the downstairs neighbor's cat sleeping on their fresh laundry, and right now, I can hear that you're either beginning to believe me or beginning to go into denial, because your heartbeat is leveling out for the first time since I came back."

Foggy pulls a sharp breath. "You can hear my heartbeat?"

"Anybody's, if I concentrate."

"Wait, so—" Foggy scoffs. "You said you could tell if I was lying. I thought you were just- _saying_ that. Are you telling me you can actually go around and polygraph the world by listening to their heartbeats? That's—" his face scrunches. "That's invasive."

"It's not quite like that."

"So you _can't_ tell when someone's lying?"

Matt shrugs and casts his hands out at his waist, a nonverbal _what are you gonna do?_

"Aren't you a lawyer?" Foggy's tone is softer but his heartbeat isn't. "That's illegal as hell, man. They'd disbar you in a second."

"I won't get caught."

"Seriously?" Foggy shakes his head. "I guess that shouldn't surprise me, coming from the local vigilante."

"I don't abuse it, Foggy. I'm just using everything at my disposal to keep the people of Hell's Kitchen safe. Do you think any other competent lawyer would have taken Karen's case? I knew she was telling the truth. I defended her."

Foggy makes a small noise. "Oh. That— It was you. You saved her life, in the mask."

Matt nods.

"And you saved mine, twice, that first time I saw you. Did I ever thank you?"

"It was implied." Matt takes a step, halfway to Foggy's space. If one of them reached out, they could touch each other. Neither moves.

"Well. Thanks," Foggy says, "officially."

He touches Matt's elbow, hardly more than a brush of fingers, but Matt lights up with it; he can feel the bones of Foggy's arm through the layers of skin and fabric, light and strong. The ulna was broken when he was young, maybe twelve or thirteen.

"Foggy," Matt says, soft so that Foggy will have to lean in, have to listen close, "when Fisk is out of this city, I want to see you again. I want you to come back to me."

"You'll need to give me something to come back to." Foggy's words aren't so much sounds as shifting shapes on the air. "Watch out for yourself. These guys are nasty. I hear they kidnap people and torture them."

"Not if I can help it."

"I'm serious, buddy— Matt." Foggy's other hand lands on Matt's other elbow. There's urgency in the line of his body; Matt can just picture the knit of his brows from their crinkle. "Matt, you watch out. If I thought I could say something to make you stop, or at least let someone help you, I would, but—" a wet press of Foggy's lips together, the flick of his eyelids shuttering, "seriously, you can't make me care about you and then get yourself killed, okay?"

He squeezes Matt's elbows, and Matt is undone. He draws a shaky breath.

"I didn't mean for you to care."

A laugh punches more through Foggy's nose than his mouth. He tilts his head back, leaving his lips the half-inch higher they'd need to be if he wanted to press them to Matt's. Matt leans forward, just enough to realize that he's doing it. Just in case.

"Buddy," Foggy breathes. "It's way too late for that."

"Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah."

Foggy's head angles, barely, so that his nose wouldn't bump Matt's, if their noses were to be that close. If—

 _Karen. Karen. Karen._

They pull back, Matt with his upper body and Foggy a whole few steps.

"Is that-?" Foggy starts.

"My phone. Karen. I—" Matt sucks a breath through his teeth then sighs it out. "I need to get to work. She's—"

"Yeah, yeah, you go. I need to get out of here anyway." Foggy's hands worry over his clothes for a moment, brushing the fabric down despite its already being smooth. Then his arms go limp, and he tilts his head toward Matt. "I'm serious. Be safe. And call me the moment this is all sorted out. I hate leaving New York."

Matt nods once. "You'll be the first to know."

"Matt." He takes Matt's elbow again and grips it tight. "You—" he swallows. " _Really_. Be safe."

"I will."

Lie, his heartbeat says, but Foggy's none-the-wiser. He gives Matt's arm one last squeeze, then heads for the door.

He calls, "See ya, buddy," and he's gone.

Matt deflates into the couch. It's then that he realizes, with a thin breath of a laugh, that he's still clutching the mask in his right hand. He worries it between his fingers, taking in the familiar texture, and the smells of everywhere he's been.

 _Karen. Karen. Ka—_

He snatches his phone from his pocket. "Karen, hey. Sorry, my alarm didn't go off. I'll be there in fifteen, okay?"

" _Oh,_ " she says, and even through the phone he knows her throat is doing that wavery thing. " _Yeah, okay._ "

"I _am_ sorry, Karen. I don't want you to worry." He sighs. "You're important to me. You know that, right?"

" _What? Yeah, I. I know_."

"I— Okay. Okay. See you in a minute."

" _Sure, Matt. See you._ "

Matt hangs up. He flings the mask across the room.

 **x+x**

Now that Gao and the Yakuza have gone silent and Foggy is laying low, Matt feels he's spending more hours at the office than in the last several months combined. Without clients, he and Karen sit tensely at their respective desks or at the conference room table, scouring through what they have on Fisk. Foggy got them a substantial amount of information before going, but the bulk of it is complex and dry, the kind of reading that only yields results under a sharp eye and a fine-toothed comb. The feeling that they're missing something is impossible to shake. Matt knows he hasn't been at his best lately, and Karen isn't any better; since Ben was murdered, she's been ragged at the seams. Today, especially, she's in a sorry state. Her most recent meal smells distant and dismal, and she didn't sleep last night, if the twitch of her eyelids is my indication.

Finally, when her face drifts for the dozenth time toward the wall to their left that Matt's fairly sure is blank, he puts a hand on her shoulder and tells her to go home.

"Get some rest, Karen. Please."

She melts into his touch for a moment. "Okay," she sighs, like he beat it out of her.

Once she goes, Matt takes all the documents in Braille back to his desk, thinking he should be more able to focus without Karen's weariness tugging on the edge of his perception. He really needs a breakthrough with this.

Fifteen minutes later, he jerks to attention at the sound of his ringtone— _Foggy. Foggy. Foggy_ — and realizes that he spent the whole time listening to the people downstairs discuss the Black Widow, and whether she should be in prison. He loses their conversation as he fumbles for his phone.

"Foggy? Is everything okay?"

" _Oh yeah, I'm okay. I'm fine._ " He sounds comfortable, moreso than he did when he called last week to say he arrived safely. " _You got a minute?_ "

Matt puts a hand to his temple and leans with his elbow on the desk. "Did you need something?"

" _Oh_." There goes the comfort. " _Sorry, man, is this number for emergencies only? 'Cause I don't want to—_ "

"No, of course not," Matt says, although he's just now realizing that he didn't expect Foggy to call for any other reason. After the way they left things, maybe he should have expected them to talk, but that isn't the sort of thing he's used to. People don't frequently call him up for casual chats; he can't remember the last time he had a phone call for pleasure. "I didn't mean to give that impression. Are you doing well?"

Foggy chuckles. " _Yeah, I'm doing well. Mostly_."

"Mostly?"

" _Not sleeping great. I keep wondering how you're doing._ "

"I'm alright. Not a lot of action here, these past few days."

" _Have you seen Karen? I mean— shit. Sorry_."

Matt smiles. "Foggy, it's part of the common vernacular."

" _Ah- yeah. I guess. Have you?_ "

"Yeah. Just sent her home early, actually. She's taking it pretty hard, what happened to Ben."

Foggy makes a small noise. " _Sorry I missed the funeral. He seemed like a good guy._ "

"You couldn't help it."

" _How's his wife?_ "

"Given the circumstances? Not too well, I'd imagine. But I don't really talk to her. That's more of a question for Karen."

" _Oh, sure. Yeah._ " Something shifts across the line. Clothes. A blanket, maybe. " _How are you taking it?_ "

Sighing, Matt leans back in his chair. "I'm just trying to get something on Fisk. Sooner he goes down, sooner good people like Ben stop dying."

A sound of agreement. " _I'm not keeping you from that, am I?_ "

"No, no." Matt loosens his tie. "I don't know. I'm no good tonight."

" _Suppose I couldn't convince you to give yourself a break._ "

"I take breaks. I'm taking a break right now."

" _Yeah, sure you are. You know what a break is, Murdock? It's sleeping in a room with a view over a forest. Connecticut is unreal when you haven't left New York in months._ "

"You know, I've never seen a forest. Not in person."

Foggy gasps. " _Seriously? Aw, man, that's tragic. Sorry I brought it up._ "

"Stop. This is why I didn't want to tell you I was blind."

Foggy groans. " _Listen, it would be sad whether you were blind or not. You never went upstate as a kid, before you lost your peepers?_ "

Matt smiles. "I didn't _lose_ them. You've seen my eyes." Foggy makes a noncommittal noise, and Matt continues. "Never had the money to travel. I played with the neighborhood kids. Kicked a lot of cans." Without realizing it, Matt's gone relaxed into his chair, head tipped over the back. He lets himself have this, the momentary quiet. "Tell me about it."

" _What, the forest? Oh, jeez. I'm not much of a wordsmith, unless you want a full legal description. I know a few surveyors._ "

Smiling still, Matt undoes his tie, drags it out from his collar and allows it to slither from his fingers to the floor. He lets the details fade from the edges of his world on fire. "Come on. Try."

Foggy chuckles. " _Alright. Well, it's really green this time of year. Not quite that spring green, but kind of a tired green. More yellow than blue. Lots of fir trees and the like. The ground is mulchy and covered in pine needles, but they're the old ones from the winter, all brown. The trees are thick right now. You can't see the sun if you look up, but the light still comes through pretty strong. It's actually bright as hell in the mornings, which is annoying, but right now, it's— it's soft. Sun's setting on the other side of the house, so I get the nice, calm blue before it gets dark_."

Matt hums. "That sounds beautiful."

" _Yeah. Yeah, it's_ —" Foggy breaks off. There's shuffling. " _Damn it_ ," he says, arm's length from the receiver.

Matt strains after a sound in the background. "Is that a chihuahua?"

Groaning, Foggy flops down on something— a bed, if that tinny sound is springs. " _Ugh, I'm not even surprised you can hear that. His name is Maxwell and every time he starts braking, he goes for about a solid thirty minutes before he shuts up. He's been waking me up at five AM_."

"How inhumane."

" _I've never contemplated animal violence before, Murdock. You should know that about me. But I'm being tested._ "

"Is that why you called? To tell me you're considering canicide?"

" _I don't know, did I really just hear you pull that word out of your ass_?"

Matt laughs. "It's just the Latin."

" _Just the Latin. Jesus_." Foggy expels air as he says it, trying to sound exasperated, but Matt knows how he forms his words when he's smiling.

"What can I say? I'm Catholic."

" _I'm never gonna get over that_ ," Foggy says, chuckling. " _The gay Catholic vigilante._ "

Matt tips his chin down toward his chest. His ears are warm. "I'm not gay."

" _Oh, yeah, you like women. But you like men too, right? If not, this is all very embarrassing for me._ "

"No, I do. I just never really thought of myself as…"

" _Bisexual?_ "

"As anything specific. I don't do relationships."

" _Color me shocked._ " He hears Foggy shifting. " _So, no relationships. Is that a mission statement, or more of a summary of past affairs?_ "

"I don't know," Matt sighs, letting his head tip back again. "My last long-term relationship ended… badly." He's never told anyone about what Elektra did to him, the way she gasped halfway to eroticism as he almost beat a man to death. He thinks he could tell Foggy, given time— but not today. "Kinda turned me off the dating thing for a while. Then I started my… nocturnal hobby not long after. After that, I guess I didn't see myself being with anyone ever again."

" _Why? Love's just a distraction when it's your destiny to stalk the night?_ "

"I didn't feel like I could be with someone while lying to them."

Foggy makes a soft, punched-in sound. His hand passes by the receiver, wiping his mouth, maybe. He does that when he's dumbfounded. " _You keep doing that to me_."

"What?"

" _You let me think I know what you're about, then it turns out you're so much more. You're killing me, here._ "

Matt lays the crook of his arm over his face. His skin is flushed warm. "Foggy…"

" _Hey, I'm into you, Matt. You get that, right? I mean, that was— when you took my hand the other night, and when you asked me to come back to you. That was all very romantic, but I want to actually put it out there in plain words, since your area of expertise seems to be more, you know, putting people in full-body casts. I'm into you and I want to be with you if I can. And I can't believe I said those sentences next to each other._ "

Against the crease of his elbow, Matt chuckles. It's stupid-breathless, like someone besotted. God help him. "You don't sound so sure of yourself."

" _No, I am. I've thought about it. It's gonna take me a while to get used to what you do, to adjust to the fact that it's a real guy doing it, to— to reconcile the man in the mask and Matt the lawyer together into one cohesive unit, I guess. But I can do it. I want to. I've given it a lot of thought. Have you?_ "

"Not— not in so many words. But." He moves his hand to the bridge of his nose, pinching as he tries to find the right way to put it. "I want you around. In my life. I want—" he gasps out a small laugh. "I want you."

He can hear Foggy swallow. " _Well. That's compelling. I, uh— oh, shit_." Matt struggles to isolate individual sounds from the ambiance: footsteps, a door opening. An unfamiliar voice speaks. Foggy says, " _Yeah, yeah, sorry_ ," through his hand on the phone. When his proper voice returns, it's at a whisper. " _Hey, listen, Matt, I'm in deep shit for waking up the dog with my— and I'm quoting here— big gay phone conversation. Can I call you back at a more reasonable hour?_ "

"Yeah. Of course. Any time."

" _Okay. Yeah. Talk to you later, buddy. Go easy on yourself. Bye._ "

"Bye."

Matt hangs up and gingerly places his phone on the desk without lifting his head. He's warm all over. His heart beats faster than resting, but low for him, far from the realm of fear or exertion. It's a good kind of rhythm.

He smiles at the ceiling.

 **x+x**

A "more reasonable hour" turns out to be 8 AM the next morning.

It's probably a little desperate on Foggy's part, but Matt can't judge him, because he was already up and waiting for the call.

"Good morning," he answers, thankful that no one is here to see the foolish proportions of his smile.

" _Matt, hey. Get some rest?_ "

"Enough. Did the chihuahua survive the night?"

Foggy laughs. " _Barely. It's like staring into the abyss, except the abyss is yipping at the top of its lungs and you're thinking about feeding it to the neighbor's doberman— who also barks, by the way. I don't know if I can take another day of this._ "

Still smiling, Matt takes a seat on the couch. "I'll pray for you."

" _Yeah, thanks_ ," Foggy says. " _Oh, man, that reminds me. I didn't mean to bring up the sexuality-and-religion issue last time, so. Sorry, if that's a soft spot for you._ "

Unsure what to say to that, Matt waits with his lips parted for just long enough that Foggy stumbles onward, " _I just forget that it can be a complication for some people. I had it easy. My parents weren't very religious, and they didn't mind that I wasn't. But I know some people have had hard luck with the whole God-and-gays conundrum_."

Matt sighs, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "No, you're fine. I mean, it was— I'm not especially devout. And when I was, I had bigger things on my mind." He fiddles with the fingers of his left hand. "I'm not going to say that I never sat at confessional and agonized about having impure thoughts, but. It's been a while since then. Even if it is wrong, it's hardly the worst thing I'm doing."

" _Ah. I'm gonna go ahead and sidestep the latent homophobia there. Have you been with guys before?_ "

"Sober?" Matt asks, working for his cool. "You'd be the first."

" _See, this is good information. Now I know why you went from smooth to total dork the moment I started flirting back._ "

Matt goes warm all over. He puts a hand over his face. "I did not. That's slander, Mr. Nelson."

" _Ha! You did. You're doing it right now._ "

"No, you're mistaken. I'm always smooth."

" _And you're an awful liar. It's okay. I won't tell anyone._ " Foggy breaks off with a small, concerned sound. " _Are you even out?_ "

Between his knees, Matt's hand won't stop fidgeting. He clenches his fingers into a fist. "I don't have much of anyone to be out to. My priest wouldn't care. He's… unorthodox. And I doubt Karen would mind." He sighs. "It hasn't exactly come up."

" _Sure, I get it. It's not a big deal. I just wondered._ "

There's a brief pause, and for a moment the noises in the background are entirely indecipherable to Matt. It's only after straining to make sense of them that he realizes he's trying to place them in the wrong context; they aren't city sounds. It's nature. Birds chatter and the wind shudders through distant leaves. Foggy sits still, but Matt can just barely hear the tree trunks around him, the way they shape the air in loose, commanding swirls.

"Are you in the forest?"

" _Yeah. You can hear that?_ "

"Sure. The birds sound nice."

Foggy breathes a surprised sound, smile-shaped. " _Dude. The birds are like, miles away._ I _can barely hear them._ "

Matt doesn't know what to say to that. Some part of him thinks he should say thank you, like it's a compliment— but mostly Foggy sounds disbelieving. It shouldn't surprise him.

" _So, you kind of— I mean, you explained it pretty well, but I'm still taking it in. Just how strong are your senses?_ "

Matt huffs a chuckle. "Strong."

" _What, like, five times as strong as a normal person's? A hundred times?_ "

"I'm not sure."

" _Ballpark it._ "

"I don't know if I could. It's difficult to measure it that way. I was only nine the last time I had normal senses, and sight kind of takes up all the space in your head, when you have it. I was too busy using my eyes to pay special attention to anything else, so I don't remember enough to draw a comparison."

" _Hm. That makes sense._ " Foggy pauses, and opens his mouth around a few aborted starts before saying, " _How much do you think it makes up for it? The blindness._ "

"It doesn't work like that. I mean, yes, I'm more able to do certain things than a normal blind person— or a normal sighted person, even. But I'm still—" his chest tightens a little bit, "—I still have a disability, at the end of the day. The Braille isn't for show. I had to get a lot of accommodations made for me, back in school. I have a service that buys groceries before me 'cause in the store I can't read the labels. There are things I can't do."

" _Can you drive a car?_ "

"Ha!" Matt tips his head back, tickled by the thought. "No."

" _Yeah, but have you tried?_ "

"I haven't. And I'm not going to, so don't get any ideas."

" _Sorry! Had to ask._ "

"I mean, I've thought— I think I could probably drive a motorcycle, if I needed to. I've never tried, but… maybe someday, if I can find a country road. I'd never try it in the city."

" _I'd pay to see that. Don't know if I'd go as far as to ride in your sidecar or anything— knowing you, it'd turn into some kind of X-games motocross shit pretty quicky_."

Matt laughs. "And here I thought you trusted me."

" _Listen, I wouldn't trust Captain America himself if he pulled up on a 1940s scooter and tossed me his own stupid helmet. I've seen way too many neck braces on way too many bikers in way too many courtrooms_." Foggy rakes his hair away from the receiver, a rustle that feels empty without the accompanying brush of air. " _Anyway. What other strange and fantastic things can you do? You can hear heartbeats, so what else can you hear? Molecules?_ "

"I can't hear molecules."

" _Fine. Bet you can eavesdrop like a motherfucker, though._ "

"I try not to, but—" Matt's throat catches. Shit. Shit, he never planned on telling Foggy that he overheard his flub with Karen, but suddenly it seems like a lie not to. He spends so much time lying that it shouldn't bother him anymore, but this trust between them is so fresh, so fragile— before he knows what he's doing, he says, "Sometimes I hear things I didn't mean to."

" _Yeah?_ "

"Specifically, ah. You. You and Karen, at the office a few weeks ago."

Foggy makes a sound that Matt's heard before, but usually only from people he's kicking in the gut. " _You were spying on us?_ "

"No, no. I was in my office and I didn't hear you coming until it was too late. I didn't want you to see me— you would have recognized me in front of Karen— so I hid. And I. I was too close to block it out."

" _Jesus_." Foggy's hand moves near his face, maybe rubbing his temple or squeezing the bridge of his nose. " _Wow. Fuck. That was, uh. Not one of my best moments. You heard everything?_ "

Matt's neck is hot. "Yeah."

" _Awesome. Well, that's— hm_." He sighs. " _Wait. You knew? You knew that Karen has a thing for you?_ "

Matt tries not to groan. "Yes."

" _And you didn't move on that?_ "

"No." He sighs. "She's a friend. It's not like that. She's- she's beautiful, of course. I'm not saying I'm not attracted to her."

" _Wait, hold up. You can hear when someone's hot?_ "

Matt chuckles dryly. "More or less. My criteria are probably a bit different than yours, but I know what I like."

" _So you like Karen, and you knew she likes you? And you're sitting here talking to_ me?"

"Don't put it that way. Karen doesn't… she doesn't know."

For a moment, there's nothing but wind a distant chirp of birds on the other end of the line. Shoes shift through the mulchy earth. " _Is that why you're interested? 'Cause I'm the only person who knows about your secret?_ "

Matt shoots up off the couch. " _No_. No, absolutely not. I meant that she wouldn't get it. Or, maybe she would, but I would have to explain it to her, and it wouldn't be the same. But you get it. You get me." It should make him feel bad, coughing up the words that Elektra once said to him, all those years ago. It just makes him feel weightless. "Even when you thought I was probably a killer and you didn't trust me as far as you could throw me. You got me. And I— I do like you, Foggy. I told you that."

" _You said you want me. It's different._ "

"It's not. I—" He doesn't do this. He never talks about this kind of stuff— about what he feels— and he doesn't know how to order it or refine it, so it comes rushing out: "I like your voice and the sounds that your hands make when you move them- and there's this certain way your body heat sits. I like that. I like talking to you. I like hearing what you have to say, all the good things. You have no idea how good you are, Foggy. You have no idea how rare it is for me to come across someone like you. Seems like everyone these days just— compromises, and lets the world break off the good pieces of them, but not you. Never you."

" _Okay, okay. I get it. You're making me blush_ ," Foggy says through a tight throat.

Matt swallows, trying to ground himself. "I do like you, Foggy."

" _I know. I know. I get it. I didn't mean to get all insecure on you. I'm not usually like this. First vigilante-slash-super hero dating situation, uncharted waters._ "

"No. No, I understand." Are they dating? Is that what this is? Fuck, Matt hasn't been on a date in years. He doesn't even know if guys date each other the same way. (He decides it's best not to say that.) "This is different for me, too. It's hard."

" _Yeah. I'm trying, though. I'm trying to understand you. You're a weird guy, Matt— crazy, to be frank. But I think I've come to a conclusion about you._ "

Matt sits. "And what's that?" he asks, hesitant.

" _Well, I'm laying there last night while the chihuahua keeps barking its ass off, and I'm trying to figure out why you do what you do. I know you've told me, but you can only say 'it's the right thing' so many times before it loses all meaning. So I decide I need to come at it from a different angle. Play the jury's emotions instead of just slapping them with the cold facts, so to speak. And that's when I realize I've been trying to process it from my point of view, not yours, and that's the core of it: it's not something that a normal person can understand. You and your senses have a bad deal going for you. The rest of us can see tragedy occurring, and we know it happens everywhere, but to actually feel the amount of pain those tragedies deserve is too much for us. We can't spend our whole lives crying about it, so we have to distance ourselves from it. The only time we really access that tragedy is when it happens to us._

" _That's the thing about your supersonic ears and everything, though: it happens to you every time. It's not someone else's tragedy, it's yours, right there where you can't get away from it. The more I think about it, the more I think,_ of course _you're dressing in your Dread Pirate Roberts costume and getting in fights. I'd— man, I'd loose my shit, if I had to face the stuff you do on a daily basis. You're just doing what you can to deal with the bleak, bleak realities that the rest of us get to ignore. You were exactly right, when you said you do it because you have to. A lesser man might've just, I don't know, offed himself by now. But you're out there tying to fix it. It's more than most of us ever do in our entire lives. So I don't- I don't agree with it, but I gotta respect what you do. You deserve that much. You're a good man, Charlie Brown._ "

Something wet drips off of Matt's chin and down his hand, making him flinch. He hadn't realized he was crying.

"It's not like that," he says through his trembling throat. "I'm not— it's—"

" _Whatever self-deprecating thing you're about to say, I'm gonna need you to shove that up your ass, Murdock. I mean, I wanna reiterate, what you do isn't even remotely legal, and it could get you killed, so I'm not condoning it. But at the same time, you've helped a lot of people, me included, so that- that's gotta count for something. I get that you can't stop. And I won't ask you to, not again_."

Matt tries to breathe evenly around the edges of an approaching sob. "See?" he says, shaky. "You get me."

" _Yeah,_ " Foggy says like he's smiling. " _Don't get weepy on me. If you cry, I'll cry._ "

Pushing the heel of his hand into his eye, Matt laughs wetly. "That isn't fair."

" _I know, I know. I don't have a lot on you, with your super powers and- and ninja moves. Gotta play dirty._ "

"Ha- yeah." Matt spreads the thumb and first two fingers of his hand into his eyes, squeezing tears down over his cheeks. He remembers, abruptly, how spots of blue and purple used to burst across his vision when he did that as a kid. It seems like a different lifetime.

"I can't wait to see you again," he says, soft.

Foggy makes a strangled sound. " _Yeah. Yeah, I miss you._ " He shakes his head, a whip of the breeze in his hair. " _Jesus, Murdock, you're turning me into a teenage girl. Imagine me laying on my Justin Beiber bedspread with my legs kicking in the air, giggling on my Barbie phone._ "

Matt tucks his smiling face against his shoulder and laughs. "Oh, don't worry. That's how I've been imagining you this whole time."

" _Good. I wouldn't have it any other way._ "

God, Matt wants to kiss him.

He draws a deep breath to keep from indicating that out loud. "I need to get to work," he says, finally.

Foggy sighs, catching a note of affection in his throat. " _Yeah. Go kick some ass, okay? But carefully. I want you in one piece._ "

"Of course."

" _I— mm. See you, Matt. Be safe_."

"Bye, Foggy."

He sits on the couch with the phone to his ear for far too long after Foggy hangs up.

When he gets to work, Karen is more rested. She seems able to focus on her work, and her eyes don't struggle to open again when she blinks, and she even smiles when Matt says good morning. Her head keeps drifting toward him throughout the day, until finally she says,

"Hey, Matt. You okay?"

He faces his refreshable Braille display and tries not to smile too plainly.

"Yeah. I'm okay," he says.

He means it.

 **x+x**

In the end, when Fisk is broken and bleeding and every TV and radio in the city clamors over the other with ever-sensationalized coverage of the arrest, Matt sits on the edge of his bed, halfway out of his body armor, and allows himself to _be_. His aching hands rest on his legs, palms inward. He lets the air pass through his stiff, curled fingers, around his arched thumbs. He tries to ground himself in this moment, where the inevitability of danger has given way to something else altogether: quiet.

He shakes as he gets his legs bare, hands rough against his own skin. The bottom of the suit pools around his feet, heavy and cool for all that it's drenched in his sweat. He listens for a moment to the slow crumple of the leather, then casts out, sensing the vibration of his helmet on the floor where the pipes rumble just beneath. Beyond that, the thin creak of his half-open bedroom door, and the rest of the apartment, largely untouched over the past few days. He can't sense much detail through the refrigerator door, but he can tell the pickings are slim. In the cabinets, there are a few boxes of cereal and a sleeve of stale crackers and a collection of spices that are useless without a dish to put them on. The only thing of promise is a bottle of whiskey with a little less than a double sloshing at the bottom.

It's just enough to drink alone.

But he won't be.

In the lull between Fisk's first arrest and escape, Matt called Foggy to tell him it was safe to come home. They were still on the phone when Matt heard that Fisk was loose.

" _Should I still come?_ " Foggy asked.

"No— no, stay. Keep an eye on the news."

" _Be careful, Matt. I'm serious, don't do anything crazy._ "

Matt smiled against the receiver. "I'll try. Stay there until you hear it's safe."

" _I'll try_ ," Foggy said, mocking, and then the line went quiet.

They haven't talked since then, but Matt is sure that Foggy was en route the moment he hung up. He may not be able to hear a heartbeat over the phone, but some lies don't need the clarification. By now, Foggy's probably back in New York state, at least. Matt wonders if he'll go to his own apartment before—

"Shit," he hisses, putting a hand to his side. Three bruised ribs, one cracked— not badly, but bad enough that he should be quieting his mind right now, rather than letting his thoughts run unchecked.

Laboriously, he shifts himself to the far side of the bed from the door, where the air is still, and pulls his legs up in front of him. He rests his hands palm-up on his knees. With a long, slow exhale, he casts off his raw skin, slips out of his bruised muscles. He strives for nothing, for healing, and tries to push the thought of Fisk's wrecking-ball blows out of his mind. Fisk is gone. He's gone, and it was Matt that sent him going. Matt's still whole. He's still here. His heart still beats, slowly, evenly— until he distances himself from that, too.

He leaves his body behind, and begins to heal.

 **x+x**

New York has never felt so much like home. Though Foggy's cab hits a solid three hours of traffic on the way back in, he can't begrudge the city too much, because at least it's still here. It's where he grew up and it's where he'll grow old.

It's where Matt is waiting for him.

When he reaches the apartment complex, he bounds up to the door and buzzes 6A. A moment passes with no answer. He tries not to let it concern him. 2B answers, when he tries it.

" _What?_ "

"Sorry to wake you, I think I left my keys in—" the door buzzes open before he can finish.

He rushes inside and up to the Mask's— _Matt's_ , he still forgets sometimes— door and knocks as soon as he gets there. For a moment, he waits on the doorstep, practically vibrating. But Matt doesn't answer. Frowning, he knocks again. Matt should have heard him the first time, anyway, with his super ears. Should have heard him coming all the way from the street, if what he says about the extent of his abilities is true. Foggy isn't actually sure how comfortable he is with that, but he'd prefer it to this silence.

On a whim, he tries the knob. It turns under his hand.

"Matt?" he calls as he cracks the door, trying not to take this as a bad omen. "Matt, buddy, you here? Everything okay?" The interior of the apartment is highlighted neon, no sign of Matt anywhere, but also no indication of a break-in or a scuffle, so that's good. The bedroom door is slid ajar. Now that they're on a first-name basis, Foggy hopes it isn't crossing a line to go in there.

The first thing he sees is the helmet on the floor, deep red where a stripe of light falls between the horns. He blinks at it for a moment, because seriously, he has a very clear memory of saying that he did not endorse a the full-on devil iconography. Then his eyes catch the suit rumpled on the floor— red, too, because apparently this is what happens when the blind guy gets to choose his own look— and he looks past that, towards the bed.

"Matt, hey."

Matt sits on the far side of the bed with his legs crossed and his hands on his knees, meditating, if the cliche pose serves. At first he seems relatively unscathed, no guts hanging out. Then Foggy's eyes adjust and he discerns the shadows from the awful bouquet of bruises wrapped around Matt's bare torso.

Fisk always looked like a big guy in the news. Foggy is struck, sickeningly, by the thought of that monument of a man coming down on the much less-substantial Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

"Hey, Matt, you with me?" Foggy comes around the side of the bed to find Matt's face. Matt's eyes sit half-open, fixed motionless into the middle ground; Foggy wonders, _Does he not see me?_ immediately followed by, _Foggy, you idiot, of course he doesn't_. He hovers a few feet away, unsure what to do. Matt seems okay, probably just finding himself some Really Deep Zen after an awful night, but Foggy doesn't care for him looking so unresponsive. But then, maybe that's none of his business. For all that he thinks Matt wants him here, he did come into the bedroom without explicit invitation. Here Matt sits, off in his own world, in nothing but his boxer briefs, thinking he's safe in the privacy of his own home, and here's Foggy: standing over him like a creep.

Foggy is halfway to thinking he should just leave when he sees the bruise peeking from beneath Matt's hairline, and that's— that's it. He isn't completely sure what a concussion victim looks like, but he needs to make sure that Matt isn't one.

Carefully, he takes a seat on the mattress. Matt's body dips slightly with the weight, but he doesn't acknowledge Foggy's presence.

"Hey, I'm gonna touch you, okay?" Foggy says, in case Matt is actually listening, then lays his hand feather-light on Matt's shoulder.

"Augh!"

Matt grabs Foggy's wrist with his closest hand and jerks the other back in a fist, practically snarling. Foggy yelps. Almost instantly, Matt's face loosens. He drops his hands.

"Foggy, shit. I'm sorry—"

"It's fine, buddy," Foggy assures him, and he means it, though his his voice runs a little thin. "Are you good?"

Matt sighs. He unfolds his legs slowly. "I'm okay," he says through a poorly suppressed wince.

"How do you make it in court with a poker face that flimsy, man?"

Matt laughs, then breaks off groaning, a hand going to his side. He angles his head away from Foggy, maybe trying to hide the pain. Foggy's never seen him so stiff. He looks kicked, both literally and metaphorically.

Without thinking, Foggy leans in and wraps Matt up in his arms, which is a great idea for the whole half-second before Matt gasps in pain.

"Shit." Foggy springs back as if burnt. "That was stupid. Sorry, sorry, you just—"

"Foggy."

Matt's arm crushes around Foggy's shoulders and pulls him into solid warmth, pressing his face against the hard line of Matt's neck. Matt's other hand threads up into his hair and clutches, just on the wrong side of painful, but Foggy lets him. He can't make himself mind.

"Foggy," Matt says again, like he means to say a whole lot more.

"Hey, yeah. I'm here." He eases his hands onto Matt's back, gentle because he doesn't know where all the bruises are. "You did good, Matt. You did good, and it's over." He strokes at Matt's back softly as he can. Maybe he expects Matt to cry, but there are no tears, only desperate hands and hard, unsteady breaths against his scalp.

A few moments pass before Foggy becomes uncomfortable with the angle, and then a few more before Matt's stillness starts to concern him again.

"Hey," he says against Matt's throat, so close that he thinks he can hear his pulse point— even with his regular old normal hearing— "C'mere, c'mere."

He slides his hands around to Matt's ribs and manages to get one as far up as his chest, then slowly, carefully, pushes him toward the bed. With reluctance, Matt's arm drops from around Foggy's shoulders, but his other hand stays fixed in Foggy's hair. His eyes linger on the middle-ground; it strikes Foggy, for about the hundredth time, that they really can't see anything. He wonders if it should make his chest feel so warm and strangled.

"I got you," he murmurs, and it feels so excessive to say it out loud, but it's worth it to see the lines of Matt's body go concave into the unmade sheets.

"I got you," he says again. Matt's eyes flutter, a hint of lash visible in the dark, and his eyes drift onto Foggy's face.

Foggy kisses him, softly, on the mouth.

Matt's eyes go wide, but he doesn't say anything, not like Karen did— he arches up, mouth closed, all pressure against Foggy's lips. Foggy reaches around for the back of Matt's head and tilts him so that their noses press against each other's cheeks. Their lips spread but their mouths don't open, not quite. They breathe against each other, noses smushing. Matt's hand fans against Foggy's skull. Foggy pulls away and kisses Matt's cheek, his chin, the underside of his jaw. He makes a path through Matt's stubble, knowing it'll leave his skin raw but not really caring, and takes solace in the unspooling of Matt's body beneath him. Matt's hand goes loose in Foggy's hair as he's kissed, still hanging on but drifting down to his neck, threatening to fall away at any moment. His breathing evens down.

Foggy loves him. Fuck, he loves him so much.

He pulls back, just punch-drunk enough to say it out loud, but he's saved from the impulse by the sight of Matt's closed eyes. His mouth is barely open, the hints of his smile lines and crow's feet gone lax. Asleep.

 _You bastard_ , Foggy thinks, but he's smiling.

He leans in close and whispers, "Good work, sleep well." If he kisses Matt's forehead, no one is there to judge him for it.

The couch is more comfortable than he remembers it being. Unlike the last time he slept here, he lays down feeling that he can actually rest. Matt breathes softly in the next room. Everyone's safe.

Even as the room bathes in yellow, he drifts off smiling.

 **x+x**

Matt wakes up with his fingers threading around something half-forgotten. He turns toward his hand, flexes it. His face pinches— God, he aches— but the rest of him lays languid against the sheets, boneless like his strings are cut.

Someone lingers on his lips, a hint of intimacy against the tip of his tongue. Skin cells, saliva, an ever-so-slight chafe from the microscopic hairs of a clean-shaven face. The traces are too faint alone to identify as Foggy's, but the sound of his heart in the next room is enough.

Matt grins.

He sobers up a little when he has to push himself out of bed— he definitely should not have slept before putting ice on his ribs. He's almost too stiff to make it to the bathroom. Normally he keeps showers to their bare minimum, just the appropriate amount of cleaning and a shave if he needs it, but this morning he lets himself stand under the stream. The warmth seeps through his sides, up his sinuses, into his pores. Maybe he needed this, a moment to indulge, allowing himself comfort to the melody of a friend's resting heart.

Well. Friend, maybe, but— he touches his fingers to his lips— something else, too.

After his shower, he stretches to the best of his ability, and enjoys the throb left in his limbs as he picks out his clothes. Foggy's seen him in all manner of disarray, so he doesn't feel much of a need to impress; he puts on track pants and a t-shirt that'll be light on his bruised skin. He leaves his glasses on the bedside table, where he took them off before going out last night.

Five feet away from the couch, he stops and basks in Foggy's stillness. Daylight falls warm on Matt's lower legs, and he can sense where it lays on Foggy, over the crown of his head and down across his hands folded on his stomach. The small, sleepy breaths from his nose send air rushing through the grooves on his cheek and arm, where his skin spent most of the night pressed against the trimming of the couch. He doesn't snore, but Matt can sense the flutter low in his throat that means he'll start when he's older, in his 40s or 50s, maybe.

He's struck, right in the chest, by the hope that he'll still know Foggy then.

God, but he's in trouble.

Biting his lower lip, he rounds the couch without waking Foggy and sets about searching for something to eat. There are eggs in the fridge, but he can tell by the smell of them and the way the yolks sit inside that they've gone bad. The milk still has a few days, though, so he puts it on the counter. He reaches up to pull the cereal from the cabinet, then flinches back and has to stifle a hiss of pain. His ribs don't like that. Wincing, he leaves the cereal on the counter. After that, his side keeps catching and he moves stiffly, not as careful as he should be; he lets a bowl clatter against the counter when he sets it down.

Foggy's heart leaps. He jerks awake, then eases into the couch with a long exhale. A few moments pass before he sits up. When his head turns toward Matt, he grins. "Hey, he lives!" he says, fond.

Matt nods at him. "Good morning, Foggy."

"You really passed out on me last night, buddy," Foggy says against his hand as he staves off a yawn. "I'd, uh, chide you about getting more sleep if I thought it'd do anything."

Matt inclines his head at that, acknowledging the sentiment but not willing to engage with it. He stands with the cereal box in his hand for a moment, waiting for Foggy to say something more about last night.

When Foggy remains silent, Matt says, "Shower's open, unless you want breakfast."

Foggy releases a held breath. "Breakfast, absolutely." He stands. "You have a spare toothbrush, though? I'm pretty sure anything I put into my mouth right now will taste like— oh. Oh, _no_. You can't smell my breath from all the way over there, can you?"

Matt laughs. "I can. But I can also smell the garbage bins in the alley and the litter box in the apartment underneath us. There are worse things. And it's just information to me unless I focus on it, anyway."

"Yeah, if you thought that would console me, you're wrong. Please tell me you have that toothbrush."

"Drawer next to the sink."

"Thank god." Foggy makes a beeline for the restroom. Once he's pissed and washed his hands, he opens the door while he brushes his teeth. He calls through the foam, "Have you checked the news this morning? Anything on Fisk?"

Matt inclines his head toward the south wall. "Sounds like he's secure in custody." He barks a laugh. "And they've all caught on to the nickname."

"Yeah, you're the Daredevil now. What are you, about to cross a high wire juggling Molotov cocktails?"

"I could probably do that."

Foggy snorts— some toothpaste mists across the mirror— then spits into the sink. "You can hear the news from next door? It's nothing but racket to me."

"Hm? Oh, no, next door she's watching Good Morning America. The news is a couple of apartments over."

"Holy shit, dude." Foggy emerges from the hallway running his tongue around the backs of his teeth, feeling their squeaky surface, maybe. "I'm trying not to validate you when you show off, but you're making it hard."

Matt smirks at that. He can't deny the thrill of someone knowing what he can do. Over the years his ability has become commonplace to him, especially after Stick told him so often that he wasn't special, wasn't impressive, but Foggy— Foggy's making him feel like someone incredible.

"It's just cereal today," Matt says, pushing the boxes toward Foggy as he enters the kitchen.

Foggy stops next to him and makes a contemplative noise in the back of his throat. "Are these plain cheerios?"

"They're healthy."

"They're sad. You aren't supposed to buy these unless you have a toddler or you hate yourself."

Matt chuckles softly. "In my defense, I don't usually do my own shopping."

Foggy stiffens. "Aw. Man. I keep forgetting." He turns to face his bowl as he fills it, very deliberately keeping his nose pointed away from Matt. "You're really blind, aren't you?" he murmurs.

Matt turns his face towards him. "What?"

"It just keeps on hitting me. You know— the way you like to stand, with your head angled down. I always thought it was, uh, pretty melodramatic, before." He chuckles, quick and biting. "Thought it was a dumb macho thing. I wondered, 'how does he see where he's going?' But you didn't. You don't. See, I mean. At all."

Nodding, Matt gives a grim smile, lips pressed tight together. "No," he murmurs. "I don't."

"Sorry. I'm not— I don't mean to make you uncomfortable."

Matt raises his hands in gentle defense. "You don't. I get it. It's—"

"Amazing."

"Sure, if that's what you wanna call it."

"Maybe not. I don't know. It's a lot to process. It's different to actually… see you, how you don't really look at anything."

Matt's hand flinches involuntarily toward his breast pocket before he remembers that he isn't wearing his jacket, and his glasses are at his bedside. "I hope it doesn't bother you." He's unsure if he means it as a confession or a threat.

"No." Foggy's heart beats steady. "I'm staring into your eyes a lot, if you must know. But I bet you can sense that."

"I can't."

"Oh. It's probably taboo, isn't it."

"Probably," Matt murmurs. "I don't mind."

"Oh." Foggy drifts almost imperceptibly closer, but then turns back to his cereal. He uncaps the milk and pours some into the bowl.

They eat quietly, standing at the counter. Matt knows exactly what he's doing when he lets their elbows brush; he relishes the way Foggy tenses in reaction, how his face warms. Who's dorky now, Nelson?

The cereal goes quickly. Foggy finishes first, and rinses his bowl in the sink. His head follows Matt when he does the same a few moments later.

"So," Foggy says, soft to anyone else but so loud to Matt, filling up his entire world, "what now?"

"Well," Matt murmurs, glad he's the only one who can hear his galloping heart, "You've seen my face, but I haven't seen yours."

A small sound escapes Foggy's parted lips. "You can't super-sense my stunning good looks?"

Matt laughs. He feels like he can't stop doing that. "I don't get a lot of detail. I can feel parts of your face when you do something expressive, but mostly you're just…" He waves his hand over Foggy's face, a few inches out but close enough to catch the planes of his cheeks, the disruption of his nose. "Warm."

And now, even warmer. "Oh. Some superpower. Should get a refund on that."

Matt draws half a step closer. Foggy will be able to feel his heat, now; Matt can feel Foggy's entire body, the everyday strain of his muscles and the way his fat sits and how his hand keeps inching back and forth toward Matt's hip, wanting to touch but not to make the first move.

"I look like George Clooney, pretty much," Foggy breathes, "if you're wondering."

"I was thinking I could touch you."

"Or that."

Foggy gasps when Matt makes contact, only the fingers of his right hand at first. Foggy's skin is hot. His barely-there stubble and the on-end hairs of his upper cheek make Matt's breath catch. He slides his hand back, cupping Foggy's jaw in his palm and spreading his fingers as far as they'll go to get a feel for the size of his skull.

Everything's bigger through touch. Matt remembers seeing, how even things a few feet away only looked inches tall; his world on fire is that way, too, modeled with regards to perspective. But to his hands, nothing is far. It's all immediate under his fingers, every edge of Foggy's face, every plateau. For a moment, it's his whole world.

He runs his fingers systematically across the typography of Foggy's face, the plateaus and valleys of him, the the peak of his nose. He can't help but run his fingers into his hair, a little greasy right now but still a pleasant texture.

"Gotta admit, this is a little weird," Foggy breathes when Matt's fingers begin to trace over his eyelids. His heartbeat is already so uneven that it doesn't register as a lie, but they both know he's feeling more than _weird_.

"Sorry." Matt grins. He's not sorry. He lets his hands drift down to Foggy's neck.

Foggy clears his throat. "Like what you feel?"

"Exactly like George Clooney."

"Hey, how would you know? You haven't seen George Clooney in like twenty years. Don't bullshit me, Murdock."

They laugh, not so much because it's funny, Matt thinks, but because it's easy to do when they're together. He runs a thumb over Foggy's neck, feeling the mixture of sweat and fibers from the couch. There's a film of something mild, too, maybe a cheap soap. He wants to press his face there to find out.

"Okay," he says, sliding his hands around the back of Foggy's head, "I'm gonna kiss you now."

When their moths meet, Foggy's smiling. His lips part; Matt presses into it. He gets cinnamon toothpaste and bits of cereal and yesterday's onion rings and the metal twinge of fillings, and hundreds of things in the spit that there aren't words for because he's probably the only person who's ever tasted them.

Everyone has a world inside their mouth. Foggy's is the sort he thinks he could call home.

"Jeez, you're into this," Foggy breathes against him, too softly to hide his edge of wonder.

Matt chuckles into his mouth. "I'm into _you_."

"A man of taste."

"I'd taste you all day."

"That's terrible. Kiss me so I don't have to listen to you."

A magnet hits the floor when they stumble back against the refrigerator. Matt could have caught it, but his hands remain cupping Foggy's head, wrapped around his neck. He doesn't even remember where the magnet came from, anyway. Foggy's hands rise to Matt's shoulders and grip at his biceps, getting finger-fuls of his sleeves. They slacken into each other, and it's worth the pressure of the refrigerator against Matt's bruised back to be pinned under Foggy. His body is soft to Matt's hardness, curves to his edges. He feels he could wilt into him.

It's the southbound rush of blood that finally makes him tilt his mouth away. First his head knocks back against the fridge— "Watch it," Foggy chuckles, —then lolls forward against Foggy's shoulder. They both breathe hard, edged right up against arousal, but not too close to hit the breaks.

Matt doesn't want to fuck this up.

"You okay?" Foggy asks, which really makes it all worth it.

Matt sighs into his shoulder. "I'm fine. I'm great." He leaves a kiss against the crook of Foggy's neck. "I just, uh— not too fast, okay?"

Foggy makes a considerate noise and strokes at Matt's arm. "If this is too much, with a guy—"

"No. No, it's not. It's good. I just…" It went so fast with Electra. He can't say it out loud, not really, but he doesn't want to go tail-spinning into love again. He wants to ease his way into it, carefully, with Foggy's hand in his. "Too much of a good thing."

Foggy tips his head back and groans. "God, you're so Catholic."

Another kiss against Foggy's neck, then Matt laves his tongue across the skin. Foggy tastes like he smells: sweat, fifty-nine cent soap. He stiffens, and Matt laughs through his nose, a cold breath caught on the wet stripe he left behind.

"Okay, okay," Foggy says, strangled, patting Matt's arms, "I get it. No more cheap shots at your religion. Just don't do shit like that right after saying we should take it slow. Jesus."

"It has nothing to do with you being a guy," Matt murmurs. He slides his hands down from Foggy's neck, along his back. "I have an incredible talent for screwing up good things. The better it is, the worse the screw-up." He shifts until his forehead rests on Foggy's shoulder. His fingers play in the dip of Foggy's back. "I don't want to mess with this."

"Wow, that's a downer. Come here." Foggy draws back a step; Matt comes with him, hands still on his back, head lifting. Gently, fingers as soft as Matt knew they'd be, Foggy takes him by the jaw and kisses him close-mouthed. "You want my theory?" he says, so close that Matt can feel his eyelashes. "The first night we met, I almost got shot twice, and I also almost shot you. That's pretty screwed up, right? So you've already reached your screw-up potential for this relationship, just by meeting me."

Matt scoffs. "You weren't going to shoot me."

"I thought about it."

"That's a lie. And that wasn't the first time we met."

Foggy's brow lifts. "It wasn't?"

"We met at Landman and Zack the day of the bombings. You said you were rooting for us."

"Oh, yeah. We did." Foggy's other hand rises to Matt's jaw, and he holds him there, their faces a few inches apart, studying him, Matt thinks. He can hear the wet shift of Foggy's eyes, even if he can't tell where they're going. "Hardy seems like that was you."

"It wasn't," Matt murmurs, and feels his smile going sad. Foggy kisses it off of him.

Finally, for the first time in minutes, they drift out of each other's space. Matt's fingers hang against Foggy's back until he's too far to touch, and even then he can feel the weave of his shirt.

"Do you need to go to work?" Foggy asks.

Matt shakes his head. "Maybe later. I'm on call, if anything comes up with Fisk. Other than that, I'm all yours." He spreads his arms to indicate himself, and even as he does that, hears Foggy's heart picking up. It wasn't meant to be suggestive, but— well. He smirks for effect.

Foggy swears under his breath. "You know you're good looking, right? 'Cause I have trouble believing you'd act this way if you didn't know exactly what it does to people."

Laughing, Matt draws close to him again. With the shape of Foggy's face a clear memory under his fingers, it's so much easier to construct Foggy's expressions in his mind's eye. The look he has right now is— longing. Matt loves it.

"Maybe you just have a weakness," he murmurs, and relishes the jitter of Foggy's heart.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that." Foggy shoves lightly at Matt's shoulder, being careful of his bruises, no doubt— it doesn't even move him. "Listen, I need to go back by my place, just to check up on everything. You're— you're welcome to tag along, if you want. I've seen yours; you can see mine."

"I'd love to. Are you working today?"

Foggy groans. "Well, as of yesterday, I'm no longer a partner at Landman and Zach, so…" He shrugs, casting his hands out.

Matt should probably apologize, because it was his involvement that shook up Foggy's life in the first place, but instead he says, "You hated that job."

The muscles behind Foggy's eyes strain— he's rolling them. "That may be, but it made the difference between Foggy Nelson, Attorney at Law and Foggy Nelson, homeless drifter."

"You know," Matt says, putting a hand to Foggy's forearm, "it's not as glamorous, and I can't make any promises about salary, but there's a place for you at my firm, if you want it."

"Seriously?" Foggy's head draws back a bit, surprised. "Wow. Isn't that a conflict of interest, offering me a job right after we make out?"

Matt smirks. "I don't think Karen will mind."

"That's fair. I'll have to think about it."

"Sure."

They part. While Foggy gets loafers tied, Matt goes to gather his glasses and cane. Foggy's brow lifts when he sees Matt with the paraphernalia.

"Guess you always go out with that stuff." There's an edge to his voice. Matt hopes it isn't judgment. Foggy seems to hear it too, and amends, "I mean, not that… If you need it—"

"Gotta look the part." Matt extends the cane and knocks Foggy lightly on the thigh. "Comes in handy if anyone tries to start something."

"Ah. I see."

Foggy follows Matt to the door and waits while he slips into his sneakers and gathers up his keys. When Matt opens the door, Foggy reaches from behind him to pull it wider. Their hands brush. In the hall, as Matt pauses to lock up, Foggy's warmth lingers near his back. His face never turns from Matt once.

Matt is horribly tempted to say that he loves him. He doesn't even know if it's true. It just seems right.

"Here," he says instead, "let me take your arm."

He hooks his hand into the crook of Foggy's elbow, and gets a laugh scattered over his face.

"Fresh."

"You'll thank me later. No one's a bigger douchebag than the guy who refuses to help his blind friend get around."

Foggy chuckles. "Is that what you are? My blind friend?"

"If anyone asks? Yes," Matt says, and kisses his cheek as they step out into the midmorning warmth. They fall into step on the sidewalk. Foggy asks Matt hushed questions about what he senses, and Matt trades answers for Foggy's take on the sky. The tap of his cane mounts a rhythm between them.

Nothing has ever felt so natural.

 **x+x**

All told, it takes more than a few months for them to end up in bed together, which by Foggy's account is too long. But he knew Matt had issues going in— it takes a certain kind of person to assume an alternate identity, is all he's saying— so he does his best to be patient. Sue him, he loves the dramatic bastard.

It pays off in the end, of course.

As the one more experienced with men, Foggy takes the lead. He's confident in his ability to induct Matt seamlessly into the world of gay sex; by the time Foggy figured out that he was pretty okay looking and his childhood bullies were dicks, he'd already spent years compensating for his appearance by getting good between the sheets. He's got tricks up his sleeves, among other places, and he thinks he has a pretty good read on Matt.

Turns out he doesn't.

He thought Matt would be noisy. With his smug grin and his habit of going in for the last word like the it's the kill, it followed that he'd be a talker. But for the most part, Matt is quiet. "Tell me," he says sometimes, or, "Let me hear you," and it's hot, _Jesus_ , it's the hottest thing Foggy's ever heard. He spends a few nights wrestling over whether he should get so turned on by Matt's very utilitarian desire for sensory input, but then he sees Matt grinning at him the next time he says it, probably struggling not to laugh as he hears Foggy's moral fiber straining— or whatever it is he does— so that's that.

More importantly, he assumed Matt would be aggressive. For obvious reasons, he figured it would be all choke holds and rough riding, but Matt isn't… He's not lazy, per se, though with a body like that he could almost get away with it. He's just passive. He likes to lay and take it, whatever _it_ may be. They haven't fucked yet, because Foggy knows bringing that up the surest way to spook a guy who still isn't comfortable labeling his sexuality, so mostly it's hands and mouths or just getting off against the crevices of each other's bodies. Whatever it is, Matt will splay himself loosely like some Renaissance muse, eyes cast off into middle space, and become either overwhelmed by the moment or transported somewhere else entirely. It borders on concerning, really. Foggy will say, "Matt?" and touch him gently, wondering if he's lost him somehow, but Matt will always grasp his wrist or rake his nails down Foggy's thigh and nod. Sometimes he gasps Foggy's name.

Not to say that Matt never gets off his ass. Of course he does. He'll get Foggy up against the wall or the headboard, pinning him or draped across him. He likes to put his hands on Foggy: against his throat, his chest, in his hair, on his hips. He'll stroke him heavily, long sweeps up and down his skin, or he'll cling, nails and everything. He grabs Foggy's hair a lot. And the way he moves, shit— he'll arch his long, smooth back, a flash of muscle and scars in the lowlight, and do devastating things with his hips and the flex of his thighs. He's not as good in bed as Foggy is— face facts, Murdock— but he can mesmerize. Foggy loves the way Matt's stomach jumps if he's touched just right, how the tendon of his neck shoots a sharp shadow down to his collarbone when he tosses his head aside, flushed as anything. He likes to throw his arm over his face when he gets close, and Foggy might let him, but he might take his hand and bring it to his own face so Matt can both see and be seen, in the purest sense of the idea.

They don't spend a lot of time in bed, but it isn't a rarity, either. Sometimes their chaotic schedules have them wedging in kisses before stumbling to work, or leave Foggy breathless and half-hard as Matt slips into his suit saying, "Sorry, sorry, I have to go, I'll be back—" Sometimes they have the time but the mood isn't there. Maybe Foggy's too tired, or Matt's senses are all keyed up, or he went and got himself lacerations or something. Those nights, Foggy will invite himself to stay the night, and all they do is sleep— not as much as they should, but hey. They're together.

Tonight was one of those nights.

Fifteen minutes ago, Matt got out of bed saying he needed a drink. He never came back. Foggy finds him standing in the kitchen in nothing but his boxer-briefs, a glass in one hand. The whole room is violet.

"Hey, Matt." Foggy comes toward the kitchen, knuckling sleep out of his eyes. He stops with a hand on the bar. "You okay?"

"No," Matt says quietly. That's the arrangement. If he at least admits that things aren't fine, he doesn't have to tell Foggy what's wrong if he doesn't want to. He just has to let him know he needs the help.

It's a work in progress.

Foggy gestures at the empty glass. "Get your drink?"

Sighing, Matt starts the tap. "Did you know the woman down in C3 just lost her mom?"

"Matt…"

"She's been crying all night. I keep thinking she's going to stop, but she doesn't. She's dehydrated but she won't get out of bed."

"Matt." Foggy rounds the bar and puts his hand on Matt's shoulder. It flexes under his palm as Matt shuts off the water. "Is that what this is about? Just because someone is suffering doesn't mean you have to—"

"It's not about her." Matt takes a long, thin drink of water, then sets the glass down. He grips the counter. "It's—" His mouth pulls tight. "It's nothing."

Gently, Foggy lays his hand on top of Matt's; he knows better than to physically pry his hands off the counter, but it's hard to watch his knuckles go white. "Forgive me if I don't believe you. Gotta try harder than that with me, Murdock."

Matt huffs a humorless chuckle and turns toward Foggy, not moving to touch, but intersecting his personal space at every point. He likes to stand too close, much closer than a sighted person would stand without the intent to initiate contact. Foggy wonders if Matt can sense him better, this way. He tightens his hand on Matt's against the edge of the counter.

Matt sighs, a breath of toothpaste across Foggy's face. Foggy's found himself more attuned to that kind of thing, to smells and sounds, since learning about how Matt sees the world. He wishes he could understand it more fully. Matt's hand moves to Foggy's elbow, and trails up beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt. He wonders what Matt can feel, what he can learn from touch that Foggy doesn't even know about himself.

"I just need to get out of my head," Matt murmurs.

"Want me to help?" Foggy asks, and kisses the corner of his mouth. Matt leans into it.

"If it's no trouble."

Foggy laughs against his lips. "I mean, it's a burden, but I'll manage."

"My hero," Matt says, voice dropping low. He kisses him. His hands slide around Foggy's skull, thumbs hooked in front of his ears, holding him insistently, completely. Over the years, Foggy has kissed a lot of people, but Matt is the first one he feels is actually trying to _taste_ him, which— it's weird. He won't pretend it's not. But it's the way Matt is, and Foggy has been falling in love with it for months.

He crowds Matt up against the wall the way he knows he likes— something about the pressure on all sides, maybe, he'll have to ask— and leans against him full-bodied. Matt's hands tighten in his hair. He kisses like he's about to go to war and Foggy is his teary-eyed girlfriend, but he always does that.

"Foggy," Matt says, between kisses, then, " _Foggy_ ," with the weight of a groan behind it.

"Well, when you put it that way…"

Hands on Foggy's hips, Matt guides them away from the wall. He pushes Foggy onto the couch and sinks between his knees.

"Oh, yeah?" Foggy asks, aiming for suave and achieving breathless.

Matt smirks at him. The way the shadows fall, only his mouth catches the pink glow from the windows. Without thinking, Foggy reaches to tilt Matt's face up, so that he can see his eyes; they drift around Foggy's face, looking-but-not-quite. Matt turns into his palm, inhales deeply, then leaves a kiss on his lifeline.

A few minutes later, Foggy finds himself gripping at Matt's hair, trying not to pull _too_ hard. Matt's pain tolerance is off the charts, but Foggy's never really been into testing that kind of thing. Whenever he readjusts his grip, he can feel Matt smirking on him. It makes him moan, less intentionally than he'd like to admit.

"That good, huh?" Matt asks when he pulls off, warm against the crease of Foggy's thigh. He pushes his nose against the skin and draws a breath, smelling him.

Foggy feels himself blushing something awful, and begrudges that Matt can feel it, too. "Fuck you, Murdock."

"That's what I had in mind," Matt murmurs, ruining the line with the sincerity of his smile. Foggy rolls his eyes and tells Matt that he's doing so, even though he's sure that his pounding heart probably drowns it out. He folds to put a kiss on the wetness of Matt's mouth. Matt rises against him. The rough sweep of his hands lands on Foggy's elbows, and suddenly Foggy finds himself being pulled, no harder than he could overpower if he tried, but he's too startled to do anything about it— next thing he knows, he's being kissed against the floor, arms pinned at the elbows on either side of his head.

Matt draws away with a breathless sound, like he isn't entirely sure what just happened, and hey, welcome to the club.

"Where's _that_ been?" Foggy asks.

Matt's mouth falls to his neck. "Don't know. Just trying not to think, right now."

That probably isn't healthy behavior, but Foggy can't argue against it with Matt's breath on his throat and their legs pressing in between each other.

"You really want me to?" Foggy breathes into the shell of Matt's ear before biting it.

"Mm?"

"You want me to fuck you?"

Matt gasps softly. "Yes. Yeah, I do." He drags Foggy up by the collar of his t-shirt and pins him against the couch. It's not the place Foggy imagined doing this, but then, he's now undressing for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, and earlier this year he couldn't have imagined that, either.

He certainly wouldn't have anticipated the feeling welling up in him, soft and achy and so vulnerable he thinks a wrong touch could break him. Makes him lucky, he guesses, that Matt handles him so carefully.

Matt ends up curled in his lap, knees splayed around his chest and arms leaned on the seat of the couch behind his head. Foggy can't get over the way Matt's abdominals heave, or how the junction of his hips falls open so readily. He moves all languid, with juts of tendon and little flickers of muscle that would make Foggy feel inadequate if Matt didn't have such a thing for love handles. He rides the counter-thrust of Matt's body with a hand on the lowest part of Matt's back, and one even lower, fingers skimming them where their bodies converge. True to form, Matt is quiet, but with his mouth open just by Foggy's ear, every breath is an encouragement. His nails rake across Foggy's upper back, leap to pull at his hair, drop back to his shoulders.

"Fuck," Matt gasps and arches backwards. He hangs there a moment, eyes half-lidded, then leans forward with a roll of his hips and presses nose-first against Foggy's hairline.

That's hot.

" _Fuck_ ," Matt says again, with his nails in the back of Foggy's neck.

That's _really_ hot. Of course Foggy's heard Matt swear, but it's always more of a calculated strike— never torn out of him that way. Makes him feel like he's doing something right. "S'good?" he asks into Matt's chest.

Matt rubs his cheek against Foggy's forehead in a half-hearted nod. He throws a hand back onto Foggy's knee and shifts to hook his other elbow around Foggy's head. That gets him leverage; his thighs flex against Foggy's sides and he really moves, pulling his own weight, as it were. Foggy, who's been thrusting on his knees for the past several minutes, takes the opportunity to just hold on and _feel_. All of Matt is reduced to spasms, like the careful crafting of his every movement went out the window the moment Foggy pressed inside.

He opens his mouth onto the hollow of Matt's throat, and sucks about half a hickey before a thought occurs to him. "Matt, Matt. How's it for you?"

"Mm?" Matt breathes. His eyes have found that place off in the ether, caught like he sees heaven opening— like he sees at all. Foggy pinches gently at his lower back, trying to bring him to earth again.

"What do you feel? What's it— ah, shit— what's it like?"

"Nh," Matt says into his hair, and lays his face fully against Foggy's head. He lifts his hand from Foggy's knee and lets his heels slip inward, causing his feet to cross behind Foggy's back and his body to drop flush to Foggy's lap.

" _Jesus_ ," Foggy hisses.

Gasping a laugh into Foggy's hair, Matt squirms, but he doesn't start moving again. "Sorry," he breathes. "You- did you want me to answer the question?"

"Yes? I mean— I was thinking more like, you wax poetic sexily, not we break for lecture—"

"It's hard to think when we're moving," Matt says, chin tucked toward his chest, putting his mouth on Foggy's ear.

"That good, huh?"

Another breathy laugh. "It's a lot. Normally, normally I filter out more— nh— the more intense sensations. But this is- the point is to feel it, so I have to- I have to shut off my reflexes, and then." His hand falls back to Foggy's knee; he shifts the arm around Foggy's head to grasp him, hand insistent against his skull. "I spend a lot of my life trying not to feel this much. It's overwhelming when- when I just let it all in."

"Hope that's a positive overwhelming."

"It is. It is." He kisses Foggy's cheek, then the corner of his eye. "It's good. You're good."

"Yeah, yeah, c'mere," Foggy murmurs. He grasps Matt's neck to guide their mouths together, because he's feeling suddenly weepy and that's not the kind of sex he signed up for. They kiss open-mouthed. Matt bites him.

"Shit," says Foggy.

Then Matt gets his feet flat against the floor and moves. Foggy lets his head fall forward against Matt's chest. While he's there, he runs his tongue across a nipple and gets a gasp for his efforts. Both of Matt's arms loop around his head, now, clinging; Matt's legs begin to tremble. Foggy shifts his weight forward, grips Matt's waist, and does that _thing_ with his hips, the one he learned from his first boyfriend that made him realize he was Definitely Not Straight.

Matt actually cries out— not too loud, but enough that his eyes snap shut and his face darkens once he's done it. It's a pretty picture in the harsh light.

"Yeah," Foggy laughs into his shoulder. "Yeah, Matt. Fuck." He pitches forward to lay them down against the floor; Matt goes down hard on his back, and Foggy falls to his elbows on either side of his head, sending shadows in stripes across Matt's heaving body. Matt throws one leg around Foggy and lets the other one list to the side. His hands drift down to grasp at Foggy's hips.

"Talk to me," Matt breathes, like a benediction, or a fucking spell.

"Yeah, fuck, sure. Anything." Foggy drops his forehead to Matt's and groans as he feels Matt's hands sliding around to grip his ass. "Feel so good, Matt. You're so tight— ah, fuck. I'm— I'm close. Are you—?"

"Yes. Yes, Foggy." Even now, he still enunciates the syllables of Foggy's name. "I'm— ah—" Foggy runs his hand down between them, touches Matt how he knows he likes. A moment later Matt's spine bows; his head knocks forward into Foggy's shoulder and his hands rake up Foggy's back. His hips jerk, and his spine snakes. When it's over, he pools back against the ground with his lips parted and his eyes dazed, every line of him a gentle curve, with colors playing in the mess of his hair. That's what gets Foggy— he says Matt's name, broken, again and again as his body pitches into euphoria.

Finally he slumps down next to Matt. He edge of Matt's deltoid digs into his collarbone, but he doesn't care. They heave against each other, out of sync and yet in rhythm.

"Love you," Matt shudders against his cheek.

Foggy's throat goes tight. Matt gets a little spacey post-orgasm sometimes. Foggy tries not to read into it.

But he never was good at that, so he says, "Love you," back into the scratch of Matt's stubble, and doesn't pull away until he feels him start to smile.

 **x+x**

It isn't easy.

Relationships never are.

Matt lies more than he should. Foggy understands less than he wants. They fight: about how far Matt should go, about how he needs to be more careful, about whether or not they should tell Karen. They circle back to that one, especially; Matt isn't ready for anyone else to know, but Foggy is uncomfortable keeping it from her. They hash it out again and again, every time she works on them with her eyes, all sad because she knows liars when she sees them. It should carve a rift between them, but they always mange to bridge it, tethered by Karen's longsuffering and their love for each other. She comes up between them sometimes and pats their shoulders, calls them her boys.

"See, Matt, I told you you'd like him," she says, and thinks that Matt can't see her wink at Foggy. Those are the good moments.

The Punisher ordeal tests them.

It's then that Foggy sees, undeniably, what Matt is really about. Sure, Matt's motivations haven't changed, but he will never give up to sit behind a desk and practice within the confines of the law, not as long as there are still punches to be thrown in the streets. Foggy thought he understood that going in, but it's different, to find Matt bleeding from the head on a rooftop; it's one thing to worry about him, and another thing entirely see him lying there and think for an ice-water moment that he's dead.

On the night the punisher is arrested, Matt sits, bruised, in Foggy's bed and tells him that he's done. He won't fight anymore. He promises.

Foggy doesn't believe him. It makes it that much easier, when Matt breaks his promise less than a week later.

He gives him the benefit of the doubt on Elektra. Matt may be reckless and violent, but he's unflinching, too; he loves Foggy. Sure, Elektra poses a threat to their relationship by bringing out the worst in Matt, but Foggy never worries that she'll steal him into her bed. She's more likely to get him killed.

It's bad, when Matt stands him up in court. They've fought before, but this is the first time that they shout.

The firm crumbles. The worst part is that Matt hardly seems to care.

Foggy thinks about leaving him. He thinks about it more than once. But then he gets shot, and Matt turns up by his bedside red-eyed and subdued, and he's glad that he didn't.

"I've been thinking," says Foggy, conversationally, like he's not so happy to have Matt by his side that he could cry, "that I need a vacation."

Matt laughs, halfway to a sob. He doesn't face Foggy, but his ear turns toward him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm thinking Connecticut."

"You deserve it."

"Mm." He reaches for Matt's hand with his good arm, and squeezes his fingers when he gets them. "You'd have to come with me, of course."

"Would I."

"I wouldn't go without you."

To the surprise of everyone involved, they actually do it. After everything, after Frank vanishes and Elektra dies and Matt has The Big Talk with Karen, he leaves his suit locked in his apartment and folds himself shotgun into Foggy's rental car. He doesn't say much on the drive, weary beneath the weight of Elektra's passing. Foggy fills the silence by telling him about the scenery. He likes to think he's getting better at it.

"Ah, man. It's incredible. Do you remember them, much? Sunsets?"

"Some. I don't know how accurately."

"Well, they're all different anyways. This one is… Jesus, where to start. The clouds are thick near the horizon, like you could put your hand in them and they'd feel heavy, and they're all layered up. Makes the sky look deep and distant. It's easy to forget that it's not just, I don't know, some kind of backdrop rolled out by the props department. But right now it makes the world look so big. Further up you look, the clouds get thinner. They're remind me of- what's that stuff—? Gossamer. They're gossamer at the very top of the sky, so you can imagine how the atmosphere is thinning."

Matt's fingers land on the crook of Foggy's elbow. He chances a glance away from the road, at Matt's face— he's taken off the glasses, leaving his eyes glossy against the sunset. Turning back to the road, Foggy drops one hand from the wheel to take Matt's in his.

"Thank you," Matt says. He draws a shaky breath, the barest stutter against the constant hum of the air conditioning and the asphalt under the tires.

"Sure, buddy," Foggy murmurs.

Matt pulls their hands to his mouth. He rests his lips against Foggy's veins, not quite a kiss and somehow more intimate for that.

"For everything, I mean."

Foggy smiles. "I know."

A moment passes that way, where the most important thing in the world is Matt's breath on the back of Foggy's hand. This is why he wants to stay with Matt, even though it's hard: of all the unlikely things in the world, who would have guessed that the abhorrence and terror he once felt around the man in the mask would give way to this: this feeling of being needed and known— loved, even? Foggy doesn't believe in God, but the look on Matt's face as he holds Foggy's hand to his mouth is the kind of thing that makes him wonder.

Some time later, after the sort of silence that feels like home, Matt says, "Tell me about the trees."

And Foggy does.


End file.
